at
precision and effect. _Ainsi_, the elements were all favourable; each
instrument filled its part; and the _ensemble_ was good--rather a rare
event where people come out expressly bent on enjoyment, and determined
to take pleasure by storm. Premeditated happiness, like marriage for
love, is often too much premeditated. Here, however, "the gods were
propitious." Unlike most picnics, there neither was rain nor rancour;
and considering that we had specimens of at least half-a-dozen different
nationalities, and frequently as many different languages going at
once, there was much amusing conversation, and a great deal of pleasant,
gossip-ping anecdote: not that regular story-telling which depends upon
its stage-effect of voice and manner, but that far more agreeable kind
of narrative that claims interest from being about people and places
that we know beforehand, conveying traits of character and mind of
well-known persons, always amusing and interesting.

There was a French secretary of legation for Berne, a most pleasant
_convive_; and the Austrian general was equally amusing. Some of his
anecdotes of the campaign of 1805 were admirable: by the way, he felt
dreadfully shocked at his own confession that he remembered Wagram. The
Countess Giordani came late. We were returning from our ramble among
rocks and cliffs when she appeared.

I did not wish to be presented; I preferred rather the part of observing
her, which acquaintance would have prevented. But old Lady B---- did not
give me the choice: she took my arm, and, after a little tour through
the company, came directly in front of the Countess, saying, with a
bluntness all her own,--

"Madame la Comtesse, let me present a friend whose long residence in
your country gives him almost the claim of a countryman:--M, Templeton."

If I was not unmoved by the suddenness of this introduction--appealing
as it did, to me at least, to old memories--the Countess was composure
itself: a faint smile in acknowledgment of the speech, a gentle
expression of easy satisfaction on meeting one who had visited her
country, were all that even my prying curiosity could detect.

"What part of Sicily have you seen?" said she to me.

"My friend Lady B----," said I, "has made me a greater traveller than I
can pretend to be: I have been no further south than Naples."

"Oh! I am not Neapolitan," said she, hastily, and with an air like
disappointment.

I watched her closely as she spoke, and