know we pique ourselves on our sincerity, and say all we think."

"Yes? then you always think very unpleasantly. What an alternative!
which is the best, to speak ill or to think ill of one?"

"Pour l'amour de Dieu," cried the duke, "don't ask such puzzling
questions; "you are always getting into those moral subtleties, which
I suppose you learn from Borodaile. He is a wonderful metaphysician,
I hear; I can answer for his chemical powers: the moment he enters a
room the very walls grow damp; as for me, I dissolve; I should flow
into a fountain, like Arethusa, if happily his lordship did not freeze
one again into substance as fast as he dampens one into thaw."

"Fi donc!" cried La Meronville. "I should be very angry had you not
taught me to be very indifferent-"

"To him!" said the duke, dryly. "I'm glad to hear it. He is not
worth une grande passion, believe me; but tell me, ma belle, who else
sups with you?"

"D'abord, Monsieur Linden, I trust," answered La Meronville, with a
look of invitation, to which Clarence bowed and smiled his assent,
"Milord D----, and Monsieur Trevanion, Mademoiselle Caumartin, and Le
Prince Pietro del Ordino."

"Nothing can be better arranged," said the duke. "But see, they are
just going to drop the curtain. Let me call your carriage."

"You are too good, milord," replied La Meronville, with a bow which
said, "of course;" and the duke, who would not have stirred three