her gifts while they were yet unconjectured. My wife says so.
You must be gratified to remember that, sir--clear grit, sir, and no
mistake."

"I certainly more than once have said to Mrs. Morley, that I esteemed
Mademoiselle's powers so highly that I hoped she would never become a
stage-singer and actress. But this M. Rameau? You say he is a rising
man. It struck me when at Paris that he was one of those charlatans
with a great deal of conceit and very little information, who are always
found in scores on the ultra-Liberal side of politics;-possibly I was
mistaken."

"He is the responsible editor of Le Sens Commun, in which talented
periodical Mademoiselle Cicogna's book was first raised."

"Of course, I know that; a journal which, so far as I have looked into
its political or social articles, certainly written by a cleverer and
an older man than M. Rameau, is for unsettling all things and settling
nothing. We have writers of that kind among ourselves--I have no
sympathy with them. To me it seems that when a man says, 'Off with
your head,' he ought to let us know what other head he would put on our
shoulders, and by what process the change of heads shall be effected.
Honestly speaking, if you and your charming wife are intimate friends
and admirers of Mademoiselle Cicogna, I think you could not do her a
greater service than that of detaching her from all connection with men
like M. Rameau, and journals like La Sens Commun."

The Colonel here withdrew his cigar from his lips, lowered his head to a
level with Graham's, and relaxing into an arch significant smile, said:
"Start to Paris, and dissuade her yourself. Start--go ahead--don't
be shy--don't seesaw on the beam of speculation. You will have more
influence with that young female than we can boast." Never was England
in greater danger of quarrel with America than at that moment; but
Graham curbed his first wrathful impulse, and replied coldly:

"It seems to me, Colonel, that you, though very unconsciously, derogate
from the respect due to Mademoiselle Cicogna. That the counsel of a
married couple like yourself and Mrs. Morley should be freely given to
and duly heeded by a girl deprived of her natural advisers in parents,
is a reasonable and honourable supposition; but to imply that the most
influential adviser of a young lady so situated is a young single man,
in no way related to her, appears to me a dereliction of that regard to
the dignity of her sex which is