the stall with you,
then I should feel thoroughly happy! That is, if I could fall asleep.
Evelina declares we are not eight miles from Dayton. It seems to me I
am eight millions of miles distant, and shall be all my life travelling
along a weary road to get there again just for one long sunny day.
And it might rain when I got there after all! My trouble nobody knows.
Nobody knows a thing!

The night before my departure, Miss Pollingray did me the honour
to accompany me up to my bedroom. She spoke to me searchingly about
Charles; but she did not demand compromising answers. She is not in
favour of early marriages, so she merely wishes to know the footing upon
which we stand: that of friends. I assured her we were simply friends.
'It is the firmest basis of an attachment,' she said; and I did not look
hurried.

But I gained my end. I led her to talk of the beautiful Marquise. This
is the tale. Mr. Pollingray, when a very young man, and comparatively
poor, went over to France with good introductions, and there saw and
fell in love with Louise de Riverolles. She reciprocated his passion.
If he would have consented to abjure his religion and worship with her,
Madame de Riverolles, her mother, would have listened to her entreaties.
But Gilbert was firm. Mr. Pollingray, I mean, refused to abandon his
faith. Her mother, consequently, did not interfere, and Monsieur de
Riverolles, her father, gave her to the Marquis de Marzardouin, a roue
young nobleman, immensely rich, and shockingly dissipated. And she
married him. No, I cannot understand French girls. Do as I will, it is
quite incomprehensible to me how Louise, loving another, could suffer
herself to be decked out in bridal finery and go to the altar and
take the marriage oaths. Not if perdition had threatened would I have
submitted. I have a feeling that Mr. Pollingray should have shown at
least one year's resentment at such conduct; and yet I admire him for
his immediate generous forgiveness of her. It was fatherly. She was
married at sixteen. His forgiveness was the fruit of his few years'
seniority, said Miss Pollingray, whose opinion of the Marquise I cannot
arrive at. At any rate, they have been true and warm friends ever since,
constantly together interchangeing visits. That is why Mr. Pollingray
has been more French than English for those long years.

Miss Pollingray concluded by asking me what I thought of the story. I
said: 'It is very strange French habits are s