e were talked of: but
still the enlivener of every party was not to be in any one of them. She
tried to look pleased; but did not always succeed in the trial: an eye of
love and anger mingled was often cast upon the man whom everybody loved.
Her bosom heaved, as it seemed sometimes, with indignation against
herself: that was the construction which I made of some of her looks.

Lady Maffei, however, seemed pleased with the parties of pleasure talked
of. She often directed herself to me in Italian. I answered her in it
as well as I could. I do not talk it well: but as I am not an Italian,
and little more than book-learned in it, (for it is a long time ago since
I lost my grandpapa, who used to converse with me in it, and in French,)
I was not scrupulous to answer in it. To have forborne, because I did
not excel in what I had no opportunity to excel in, would have been false
modesty, nearly bordering upon pride. Were any lady to laugh at me for
not speaking well her native tongue, I would not return the smile, were
she to be less perfect in mine, than I am in hers. But Lady Olivia made
me a compliment on my faulty accent, when I acknowledged it to be so.
Signora, said she, you shew us, that a pretty mouth can give beauty to a
defect. A master teaching you, added she, would perhaps find some fault;
but a friend conversing with you, must be in love with you for the very
imperfection.

Sir Charles was generously pleased with the compliment, and made her a
fine one on her observation.

He attended the two ladies to their lodgings in his coach. He owned to
Dr. Bartlett, that Lady Olivia was in tears all the way, lamenting her
disgrace in coming to England, just as he was quitting it; and wishing
she had stayed at Florence. She would have engaged him to correspond
with her: he excused himself. It was a very afflicting thing to him, he
told the doctor, to deny any request that was made to him, especially by
a lady: but he thought he ought in conscience and honour to forbear
giving the shadow of an expectation that might be improved into hope,
where none was intended to be given. Heaven, he said, had, for laudable
ends, implanted such a regard in the sexes towards each other, that both
man and woman who hoped to be innocent, could not be too circumspect in
relation to the friendships they were so ready to contract with each
other. He thought he had gone a great way, in recommending an intimacy
between her and his sisters, consid