sation, seeing that our guest, (a circumstance which
until now quite escaped my recollection,) was shown into the next room,
for the purpose of washing his hands, the which, from their notable
cleanliness, seemed to me wholly unnecessary. I would not have him
overhear you, Dorothea, lest his kind heart should imagine me less happy
than--than it wishes me."

"Good God, Mr. Clutterbuck!" were the only words I heard farther: and
with tears in my eyes, and a suffocating feeling in my throat, for the
matrimonial situation of my unfortunate friend, I descended into the
drawing-room. The only one yet there, was the pale nephew; he was
bending painfully over a book; I took it from him, it was "Bentley
upon Phalaris." I could scarcely refrain from throwing it into the
fire--another victim, thought I--oh, the curse of an English education!
By and by, down came the mother and the sister, then Clutterbuck, and
lastly, bedizened out with gewgaws and trumpery--the wife. Born and
nurtured as I was in the art of the volto sciolto pensieri stretti, I
had seldom found a more arduous task of dissimulation than that which
I experienced now. However, the hope to benefit my friend's situation
assisted me; the best way, I thought, of obtaining him more respect from
his wife, would be by showing her the respect he meets with from
others: accordingly, I sat down by her, and having first conciliated her
attention by some of that coin, termed compliments, in which there is
no counterfeit that does not have the universal effect of real, I
spoke with the most profound veneration of the talents and learning of
Clutterbuck--I dilated upon the high reputation he enjoyed--upon the
general esteem in which he was held--upon the kindness of his heart--the
sincerity of his modesty--the integrity of his honour--in short,
whatever I thought likely to affect her; most of all, I insisted upon
the high panegyrics bestowed upon him, by Lord this, and the Earl that,
and wound up, with adding that I was certain he would die a bishop. My
eloquence had its effect; all dinner time, Mrs. Clutterbuck treated her
husband with even striking consideration: my words seemed to have gifted
her with a new light, and to have wrought a thorough transformation in
her view of her lord and master's character. Who knows not the truth,
that we have dim and short-sighted eyes to estimate the nature of our
own kin, and that we borrow the spectacles which alone enable us to
discern the