oubtless, contribute to the recovery of your peace. Her
behaviour, at leaving the house where she had received so many marks of
the most delicate affection, was in all respects so opposite to honour
and decency, that I could scarce refrain from telling her I was shocked
at her deportment, even while she loaded me with protestations of love.
When a woman's heart is once depraved, she bids adieu to all
restraint;--she preserves no measures. It was not simply contempt which
she expressed for Renaldo; she seems to resent his being able to live
under her disdain; and that resentment stoops to objects unworthy of
indignation. Even your dog was not exempted from the effects of her
displeasure. For, in her passage to the door, she kicked the poor
animal as one of your dependents; and, in our way to the apartment I had
provided for her, she entertained me with a ludicrous comment upon the
manner in which you first made her acquainted with your passion. All
that modesty of carriage, all that chastity of conversation, all that
dignity of grief, which she knew so well how to affect, is now entirely
laid aside, and, when I quitted her, she seemed the most gay, giddy, and
impertinent of her sex."

"Gracious powers!" exclaimed Renaldo, starting from the couch, "am I
under the delusion of a dream; or are these things really so, as my
friend has represented them? Such a total and sudden degeneracy is
amazing! is monstrous and unnatural!"

"Such, my dear Count," replied our hero, "is the caprice of a female
heart, fickle as the wind, uncertain as a calm at sea, fixed to no
principle, but swayed by every fantastic gust of passion, or of whim.
Congratulate yourself, therefore, my friend, upon your happy deliverance
from such a domestic plague--upon the voluntary exile of a traitor from
your bosom.--Recollect the dictates of your duty, your discretion, and
your glory, and think upon the honours and elevated enjoyment for which
you are certainly ordained. To-night let us over a cheerful bottle
anticipate your success; and to-morrow I will accompany you to the house
of an usurer, who, I am informed, fears no risk, provided twenty per cent
be given, and the borrower's life insured."

CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

THE ART OF BORROWING FURTHER EXPLAINED, AND AN ACCOUNT OF A STRANGE
PHENOMENON.

In this manner did the artful incendiary work upon the passions of the
credulous unsuspecting Hungarian, who pressed him to his breast with th