y helping herself to some sweetmeat. All
other human beings (if, indeed, an old woman can be called a human
being) were, however, invisible, and I remained perfectly bewildered
as to the non-appearance of Warburton and his companion. I entered the
Salle a Jouer once more--I looked round in every corner--I examined
every face--but in vain; and with a feeling of disappointment very
disproportioned to my loss, I took Vincent's arm, and we withdrew.

The next morning I spent with Madame D'Anville. A Frenchwoman easily
consoles herself for the loss of a lover--she converts him into a
friend, and thinks herself (nor is she much deceived) benefited by the
exchange. We talked of our grief in maxims, and bade each other adieu
in antitheses. Ah! it is a pleasant thing to drink with Alcidonis (in
Marmontel's Tale) of the rose-coloured phial--to sport with the fancy,
not to brood over the passion of youth. There is a time when the heart,
from very tenderness, runs over, and (so much do our virtues as well
as vices flow from our passions) there is, perhaps, rather hope than
anxiety for the future in that excess. Then, if Pleasure errs, it errs
through heedlessness, not design; and Love, wandering over flowers,
"proffers honey, but bears not a sting." Ah! happy time! in the lines of
one who can so well translate feeling into words--

"Fate has not darkened thee; Hope has not made The blossoms expand it
but opens to fade; Nothing is known of those wearing fears Which will
shadow the light of our after years."--The Improvisatrice.

Pardon this digression--not much, it must be confessed, in my ordinary
strain--but let me, dear reader, very seriously advise thee not to
judge of me yet. When thou hast got to the end of my book, if thou dost
condemn it or its hero--why "I will let thee alone (as honest Dogberry
advises) till thou art sober; and, if thou make me not, then, the better
answer, thou art not the man I took thee for."

VOLUME III.

CHAPTER XXX.

It must be confessed, that flattery comes mighty easily to one's mouth
in the presence of royalty.--Letters of Stephen Montague.

'Tis he.--How came he thence--what doth he here?--Lara.

I had received for that evening (my last at Paris) an invitation from
the Duchesse de B----. I knew that the party was to be small, and that
very few besides the royal family would compose it. I had owed the
honour of this invitation to my intimacy with the----s, the great
friends of