nce kept me
company, while I ate two eggs and a plate of buttered toast "After all,"
thought I, "might it not prove a great mistake not to wait on him?
How if, in our talk over politics last night, I may have dropped
some remarkable expression, a keen appreciation of some statesman, an
extraordinary prediction of some coming crisis? Maybe it is to question
me more fully about my 'views' of the state of Europe." Now I am rather
given to "views of the state of Europe." I like that game of patience,
formed by shuffling up all the governments of the Continent, and then
seeing who is to have the most "tricks," who's to win all the kings,
and who the knaves. "Yes," thought I, "this is what he is at. These
diplomatic people are consummately clever at pumping; their great skill
consists in extracting information from others and adapting it to
their own uses. Their social condition confers the great advantage of
intercourse with whatever is remarkable for station, influence, and
ability; and I think I hear his Excellency muttering to himself,
'remarkable man that--large views--great reach of thought--wish I could
see more of him; must try what polite attentions may accomplish.' Well,"
said I, with a half sigh, "it is the old story, _Sic vos non vobis_; and
I suppose it is one of the curses on Irishmen that, from Edmund Burke to
Potto, they should be doomed to cram others. I will go. What signifies
it to _me?_ I am none the poorer in dispensing my knowledge than is the
nightingale in discoursing her sweet music to the night air, and
flooding the groves with waves of melody: like _her_, I give of an
affluence that never fails me." And so I set out for the legation.

As I walked along through the garden, a trimly-dressed French maid
passed me, turned, and repassed, with a look that had a certain
significance. "It was monsieur dined here yesterday?" said she,
interrogatively; and as I smiled assent, she handed me a very small
sealed note, and disappeared.

It bore no address but the word "Mr.------;" a strange, not very
ceremonious direction. "But, poor girl!" thought I, "she knows me not as
Potts, but as Protector. I am not the individual, but the representative
of that wide-spread benevolence that succors the weak and consoles
the afflicted. I wonder has she been touched by my devotion? has she
imagined--oh, that she would!--that I have followed her hither, that I
have sworn a vow to rescue and to save her? Or is this note the cr