therine retired musing, as Mr. Billings had previously done; a
sweet smile of contentment lighted up the venerable features of Doctor
Wood, and he walked abroad into the streets as happy a fellow as any in
London.

CHAPTER XII. TREATS OF LOVE, AND PREPARES FOR DEATH.

And to begin this chapter, we cannot do better than quote a part of
a letter from M. l'Abbe O'Flaherty to Madame la Comtesse de X-----at
Paris:

"MADAM,--The little Arouet de Voltaire, who hath come 'hither to take a
turn in England,' as I see by the Post of this morning, hath brought me
a charming pacquet from your Ladyship's hands, which ought to render a
reasonable man happy; but, alas! makes your slave miserable. I think of
dear Paris (and something more dear than all Paris, of which, Madam,
I may not venture to speak further)--I think of dear Paris, and find
myself in this dismal Vitehall, where, when the fog clears up, I can
catch a glimpse of muddy Thames, and of that fatal palace which the
kings of England have been obliged to exchange for your noble castle of
Saint Germains, that stands so stately by silver Seine. Truly, no bad
bargain. For my part, I would give my grand ambassadorial saloons,
hangings, gildings, feasts, valets, ambassadors and all, for a bicoque
in sight of the Thuilleries' towers, or my little cell in the Irlandois.

"My last sheets have given you a pretty notion of our ambassador's
public doings; now for a pretty piece of private scandal respecting
that great man. Figure to yourself, Madam, his Excellency is in love;
actually in love, talking day and night about a certain fair one whom he
hath picked out of a gutter; who is well nigh forty years old; who was
his mistress when he was in England a captain of dragoons, some sixty,
seventy, or a hundred years since; who hath had a son by him, moreover,
a sprightly lad, apprentice to a tailor of eminence that has the honour
of making his Excellency's breeches.

"Since one fatal night when he met this fair creature at a certain place
of publique resort, called Marylebone Gardens, our Cyrus hath been an
altered creature. Love hath mastered this brainless ambassador, and his
antics afford me food for perpetual mirth. He sits now opposite to me at
a table inditing a letter to his Catherine, and copying it from--what do
you think?--from the 'Grand Cyrus.' 'I swear, madam, that my happiness
would be to offer you this hand, as I have my heart long ago, and I beg
you to bear in m