thinking
minor accommodations better suited to their circumstances. The world, I
soon learned, held a different estimate: and I make no doubt, the world
is very right in its view, yet believe also that I am not quite wrong
in mine.

There are people whom a lowered position degrades morally, to whom loss
of connection costs loss of self-respect: are not these justified in
placing the highest value on that station and association which is
their safeguard from debasement? If a man feels that he would become
contemptible in his own eyes were it generally known that his ancestry
were simple and not gentle, poor and not rich, workers and not
capitalists, would it be right severely to blame him for keeping these
fatal facts out of sight--for starting, trembling, quailing at the
chance which threatens exposure? The longer we live, the more out
experience widens; the less prone are we to judge our neighbour's
conduct, to question the world's wisdom: wherever an accumulation of
small defences is found, whether surrounding the prude's virtue or the
man of the world's respectability, there, be sure, it is needed.

We reached the Hotel Crecy; Paulina was ready; Mrs. Bretton was with
her; and, under her escort and that of M. de Bassompierre, we were soon
conducted to the place of assembly, and seated in good seats, at a
convenient distance from the Tribune. The youth of the Athenee were
marshalled before us, the municipality and their bourgmestre were in
places of honour, the young princes, with their tutors, occupied a
conspicuous position, and the body of the building was crowded with the
aristocracy and first burghers of the town.

Concerning the identity of the professor by whom the "discours" was to
be delivered, I had as yet entertained neither care nor question. Some
vague expectation I had that a savant would stand up and deliver a
formal speech, half dogmatism to the Athenians, half flattery to the
princes.

The Tribune was yet empty when we entered, but in ten minutes after it
was filled; suddenly, in a second of time, a head, chest, and arms grew
above the crimson desk. This head I knew: its colour, shape, port,
expression, were familiar both to me and Miss Fanshawe; the blackness
and closeness of cranium, the amplitude and paleness of brow, the
blueness and fire of glance, were details so domesticated in the
memory, and so knit with many a whimsical association, as almost by
this their sudden apparition, to tickle fa