fine-looking man, about my height."

"I should like to know him!" cried Mrs. Morley, "if only to tease that
husband of mine. He refuses me the dearest of woman's rights.--I can't
make him jealous."

"You may have the opportunity of knowing this _ci-devant_ Lovelace very
soon," said Rameau, "for he has begged me to present him to Mademoiselle
Cicogna, and I will ask her permission to do so, on Thursday evening when
she receives."

Isaura, who had hitherto attended very listlessly to the conversation,
bowed assent. "Any friend of yours will be welcome. But I own the
articles signed in the name of Pierre Firmin do not prepossess me in
favour of their author."

"Why so?" asked Louvier; "surely you are not an Imperialist?"

"Nay, I do not pretend to be a politician at all, but there is something
in the writing of Pierre Firmin that pains and chills me."

"Yet the secret of its popularity," said Savarin, "is that it says what
every one says--only better."

"I see now that it is exactly that which displeases me; it is the Paris
talk condensed into epigram: the graver it is the less it elevates--the
lighter it is, the more it saddens."

"That is meant to hit me," said Savarin, with his sunny laugh--"me whom
you call cynical."