to obey. However,
he was allowed to flatter himself, that these positive orders, how harsh
soever they might appear, did not flow from indifference; that she would
always be more pleased with his return than with his departure, for which
she was now so urgent; and having generously given him assurances that,
so far as depended upon herself, he would find, upon his return, no
variation in her sentiments during his absence, he took leave of his
friends, thinking of nothing but his return, at the very time he was
making preparations for his departure.

MEMOIRS OF COUNT GRAMMONT, VOLUME 7.

By Anthony Hamilton

EDITED, WITH NOTES, BY SIR WALTER SCOTT

CHAPTER ELEVENTH.

RETURN OF THE CHEVALIER GRAMMONT TO FRANCE--HE IS SENT
BACK TO ENGLAND--VARIOUS LOVE INTRIGUES AT THIS COURT,
AND MARRIAGE OF MOST OF THE HEROES OF THESE MEMOIRS.

The nearer the Chevalier de Grammont approached the court of France, the
more did he regret his absence from that of England.

A thousand different thoughts occupied his mind upon the journey:
Sometimes he reflected upon the joy and satisfaction his friends and
relations would experience upon his return; sometimes upon the
congratulations and embraces of those who, being neither the one nor the
other, would, nevertheless, overwhelm him with impertinent compliments:
All these ideas passed quickly through his head; for a man deeply in love
makes it a scruple of conscience not to suffer any other thoughts to
dwell upon his mind than those of the object beloved. It was then the
tender, endearing remembrance of what he had left in London that diverted
his thoughts from Paris; and it was the torments of absence that
prevented his feeling those of the bad roads and the bad horses. His
heart protested to Miss Hamilton, between Montreuil and Abbeville that he
only tore himself from her with such haste, to return the sooner; after
which, by a short reflection, comparing the regret he had formerly felt
upon the same road, in quitting France for England, with that which he
now experienced, in quitting England for France, he found the last much
more insupportable than the former.

It is thus that a man in love entertains himself upon the road; or
rather, it is thus that a trifling writer abuses the patience of his
reader, either to display his own sentiments, or to lengthen out a
tedious story; but God forbid that this char