How naturally one begins to talk of editions in such company!-I began to beat my brains for something square and solid enough to utter, in the audible tone wherewith I found it was now necessary to accost the stately Minerva to whom I had so often whispered trifles light as air; but whose present device was

Singula quæque locum teneant sortita decenter.

Before I had time, however, to rake up in my memory some of the musty truisms of old Votefilch, (for I was afraid to have recourse to the casket of jewels I had pilfered from Danby,

-as thieves after prigging a pocket-book attempt to pass the five pound flimsies rather than the hundred pound notes,) the new Queen of Sheba fastened upon me with her project for an investigation of the archives contained in the White Tower of London; among which, she protested, were certain State Papers of the first race, carried off from Vincennes during the Regency of the Duke of Bedford.

I hardly knew, (Eton and Oxford forgive me!) that there had been a Duke of Bedford antecedent to him who invented long-tailed sheep and short-horned cattle, or something of that description, whose bronze effigy affords roosting place to the sparrows somewhere about the North-West passage of Bloomsbury. I was scarcely aware of any other Regency than that of Carlton House:-or that Vincennes had existed prior to the time when it was rendered the Golgotha of the Duke d'Enghien, clearly by the hand of Providence, for every single human being concerned in the execution has made it distinctly apparent, per memoirs or protestation, that he had nothing to do with the matter. However, I recalled to mind as well as I could, for imitation, the sapient countenances of the owls exhibited at Arundel Castle;-screwed up my mouth, and listened,-which I take to be one of the most admirable exercises of wit, of which the human or owlish understanding is susceptible.

For twenty minutes, did Madame la Comtesse de St. Gratien hold forth on matters connected with English history, which I am certain she had been cramming from Lingard ever since our encounter at the château; and for twenty minutes, did I continue to bow affirmatively or shake my head mistrustfully, with an air capable ;-poor Thérèse little suspecting that she was never more thoroughly a femme incomprise than at that moment!

The men of Gotham surrounding us, were in ecstasies, "

Quelle femme!—que de profondeur! -que d'érudition!" resounded on all sides; while the half dozen terrible women, wives of candidates for place or riband-hunting men of letters, uttered suppressed groans of admiration. Here and there, an Abbè,-a race resuscitated with the Bourbons,-looked earnestly among the jostling crowd of old women in broadcloth surrounding the Minister, towards the formal circle of old women in brocade surrounding his lady, fancying per

haps that of two doses they might be the less bitter to swallow; but so great was the privilege of approaching the Madame Necker of the day, the Queen of the Classicists, the pedagogue in official petticoats,-that not a soul or body of them presumed to infringe on the magic circle of l'Instruction Publique:-risum teneatis!

CHAPTER VII.

Une femme qui ne vent s'apercevoir de rien, s'est aperçu de tout: il faut terriblement se tenir sur ses gardes avec elle.

Liberius si

BRUCKER.

Dixere quid, si forte jocosius, hoc mihi juris

Cum venia dubis.-HOR. Sat. 4.

ABSENCE is said to extinguish slight predilections and stimulate great passions, as the wind which fans a fire, puts out a candle.-I do not recommend people who wish to maintain the brightness of their affections untarnished, whether little loves or great ones, to expose themselves to the temptations of Paris.

It is true I made a compromise with my conscience, by treating my sojourn in the gay city as a species of carnival, preparatory to the sacred solemnities of Lent; and as I was fully