"I do not like your grand festivities," answered he; "but I am come
today to keep my friend's birthday with you quietly."

"How are you able to find time enough?" asked Edward, with a laugh.

"My visit, if you can value it, you owe to an observation which I made
yesterday. I was spending a right happy afternoon in a house where I had
established peace, and then I heard that a birthday was being kept here.
Now this is what I call selfish, after all, said I to myself: you will
only enjoy yourself with those whose broken peace you have mended. Why
cannot you for once go and be happy with friends who keep the peace for
themselves? No sooner said than done. Here I am, as I determined with
myself that I would be."

"Yesterday you would have met a large party here; today you will find
but a small one," said Charlotte; "you will meet the Count and the
Baroness, with whom you have had enough to do already, I believe."

Out of the middle of the party, who had all four come down to welcome
him, the strange man dashed in the keenest disgust, seizing at the same
time his hat and whip. "Some unlucky star is always over me," he cried,
"directly I try to rest and enjoy myself. What business have I going out
of my proper character? I ought never to have come, and now I am
persecuted away. Under one roof with those two I will not remain, and
you take care of yourselves. They bring nothing but mischief; their
nature is like leaven, and propagates its own contagion."

They tried to pacify him, but it was in vain. "Whoever strikes at
marriage," he cried;--"whoever, either by word or act, undermines this,
the foundation of all moral society, that man has to settle with me, and