"So," said Rosamond, "here was a fine beginning of a romance with a
shipwreck, that ends only in five square merchants, who do not lose even
a guilder of their property, and a diplomatist, with whom we are sure of
nothing but that he has lost a bundle of papers for which nobody cares!"

In a few days the remembrance of the whole adventure began to fade from
her fancy. M. de Tourville, and his snuff-box, and his essences, and his
flattery, and his diplomacy, and his lost packet, and all the circumstances
of the shipwreck, would have appeared as a dream, if they had not been
maintained in the rank of realities by the daily sight of the wreck, and by
the actual presence of the Dutch sailors, who were repairing the vessel.




CHAPTER II.


A few days after the departure of M. de Tourville, Commissioner Falconer, a
friend, or at least a relation of Mr. Percy's, came to pay him a visit. As
the commissioner looked out of the window and observed the Dutch carpenter,
who was passing by with tools under his arm, he began to talk of the late
shipwreck. Mr. Falconer said he had heard much of the successful exertions
and hospitality of the Percy family on that occasion--regretted that he had
himself been called to town just at that time--asked many questions about
the passengers on board the vessel, and when M. de Tourville was described
to him, deplored that Mr. Percy had never thought of trying to detain this
foreigner a few days longer.