now, that
the Chevalier was your acquaintance, when I so freely criticised his
dancing.' Emily blushed and smiled, and Madame Cheron spared her the
difficulty of replying. 'If you mean the person, who has just passed
us,' said she, 'I can assure you he is no acquaintance of either mine,
or ma'amselle St. Aubert's: I know nothing of him.'

'O! that is the Chevalier Valancourt,' said Cavigni carelessly, and
looking back. 'You know him then?' said Madame Cheron. 'I am not
acquainted with him,' replied Cavigni. 'You don't know, then, the reason
I have to call him impertinent;--he has had the presumption to admire my
niece!'

'If every man deserves the title of impertinent, who admires
ma'amselle St. Aubert,' replied Cavigni, 'I fear there are a great many
impertinents, and I am willing to acknowledge myself one of the number.'

'O Signor!' said Madame Cheron, with an affected smile, 'I perceive you
have learnt the art of complimenting, since you came into France. But it
is cruel to compliment children, since they mistake flattery for truth.'

Cavigni turned away his face for a moment, and then said with a studied
air, 'Whom then are we to compliment, madam? for it would be absurd to
compliment a woman of refined understanding; SHE is above all praise.'
As he finished the sentence he gave Emily a sly look, and the smile,
that had lurked in his eye, stole forth. She perfectly understood it,
and blushed for Madame Cheron, who replied, 'You are perfectly right,
signor, no woman of understanding can endure compliment.'

'I have heard Signor Montoni say,' rejoined Cavigni, 'that he never knew
but one woman who deserved it.'

'Well!' exclaimed Madame Cheron, with a short laugh, and a smile of
unutterable complacency, 'and who could she be?'

'O!' replied Cavigni, 'it is impossible to mistake her, for certainly
there is not more than one woman in the world, who has both the merit to
deserve compliment and the wit to refuse it. Most women reverse the case
entirely.' He looked again at Emily, who blushed deeper than before for
her aunt, and turned from him with displeasure.

'Well, signor!' said Madame Cheron, 'I protest you are a Frenchman; I
never heard a foreigner say any thing half so gallant as that!'

'True, madam,' said the Count, who had been some time silent, and with a
low bow, 'but the gallantry of the compliment had been utterly lost, but
for the ingenuity that discovered the application.'

Madame Cheron did no