bed, and nothing said about it.

_A._ Go on, I pray thee.

_B._ "'How is the bath perfumed?' '_Eau de mille fleurs._' '_Eau de
mille fleurs!_ Did not I tell you last week that I was tired of that
villanous compound? It has been adulterated till nothing remains but its
name. Get me another bath immediately _au violet_; and, Coridon, you may
use that other scent, if there is any left, for the poodle; but observe,
only when _you_ take him an airing, not when he goes with _me_.'"

_A._ Excellent! I now feel the real merits of an exclusive; but you
said something about dressing-room, or in-door philosophy.

_B._ I did; and now is a good opportunity to introduce it. Coridon goes
into the ante-chamber to renew the bath, and of course your hero has met
with a disappointment in not having the bath to his immediate pleasure.
He must press his hands to his forehead. By-the-bye, recollect that his
forehead, when you describe it, must be high and white as snow: all
aristocratical foreheads are--at least, are in a fashionable novel.

_A._ What! the women's and all?

_B._ The heroine's must be; the others you may lower as a contrast. But
to resume with the philosophy. He strikes his forehead, lifts his eyes
slowly up to the ceiling, and drops his right arm as slowly down by the
side of the _chaise longue_; and then in a voice so low that it might
have been considered a whisper, were it not for its clear and brilliant
intonation, he exclaims----

_A._ Exclaims in a whisper!

_B._ To be sure; you exclaim mentally,--why should you not in a whisper?

_A._ I perceive--your argument is unanswerable.

_B._ Stop a moment; it will run better thus:--"The Honourable Augustus
Bouverie no sooner perceived himself alone, than he felt the dark shades
of melancholy ascending and brooding over his mind, and enveloping his
throbbing heart in their--their _adamantine_ chains. Yielding to the
overwhelming force, he thus exclaimed, 'Such is life--we require but one
flower, and we are offered noisome thousands--refused that we wish, we
live in loathing of that not worthy to be received--mourners from our
cradle to our grave, we utter the shrill cry at our birth, and we sink
in oblivion with the faint wail of terror. Why should we, then, ever
commit the folly to be happy?'"

_A._ Hang me, but that's a poser!

_B._ Nonsense! hold your tongue; it is only preparatory to the end.
"Conviction astonishes and torments--destiny prescribes and
falsifi