uld pardon his pursuit of Miss Newcome, my Ecossois permitted
himself to say in full club, that it was Miss Newcome pursued him,--that
nymph, that Diane, that charming and peerless young creature! On which,
as the others laughed, and his friend Monsieur Walleye applauded, I
dared to say in my turn, "Monsieur le Marquis, as a young man, not
familiar with our language, you have said what is not true, milor, and
therefore luckily not mischievous. I have the honour to count of my
friends the parents of the young lady of whom you have spoken. You
never could have intended to say that a young miss who lives under the
guardianship of her parents, and is obedient to them, whom you meet in
society all the nights, and at whose door your carriage is to be seen
every day, is capable of that with which you charge her so gaily. These
things say themselves, monsieur, in the coulisses of the theatre, of
women from whom you learn our language; not of young persons pure and
chaste, Monsieur de Farintosh! Learn to respect your compatriots; to
honour youth and innocence everywhere, monsieur! and when you forget
yourself, permit one who might be your father to point where you are
wrong."

"And what did he answer?" asked the Countess.

"I attended myself to a soufflet," replied Florac; "but his reply was
much more agreeable. The young insulary, with many blushes and a gros
juron, as his polite way is, said he had not wished to say a word
against that person. 'Of whom the name,' cried I, 'ought never to be
spoken in these places.' Herewith our little dispute ended."

So, occasionally, Mr. Clive had the good luck to meet with his cousin
at the Hotel de Florac, where, I dare say, all the inhabitants wished he
should have his desire regarding this young lady. The Colonel had talked
early to Madame de Florac about this wish of his life, impossible then
to gratify, because Ethel was engaged to Lord Kew. Clive, in the fulness
of his heart, imparted his passion to Florac, and in answer to Paul's
offer to himself, had shown the Frenchman that kind letter in which
his father bade him carry aid to "Leonore de Florac's son," in case he
should need it. The case was all clear to the lively Paul. "Between my
mother and your good Colonel there must have been an affair of the heart
in the early days during the emigration." Clive owned his father
had told him as much, at least that he himself had been attached to
Mademoiselle de Blois. "It is for that that