inexhaustible. They put me to the blush: but whether it was at being
unable to keep pace with him in owning this load of obligations, or
at his impertinent acknowledgment of feelings for me of which I was
unconscious, is more than I can tell. For his part, he did but speak
on the behalf of his young friend. I had come well recommended to him,
and he had already conceived a very singular affection for me. He had
no doubt but that I should be prodigiously grateful to his lordship
for all favours. His good advice should certainly never be wanting;
and patrons like his lordship could not, by any possible efforts, be
too humbly and dutifully served.

I did but feebly second this submissive sense of obligation, and these
overflowing professions for favours not yet received. Luckily however
he talked so fast, and was so anxious to recommend himself, that I had
scarcely an opportunity to put in a word. He took all the trouble upon
himself.

I ought to have mentioned that, before the proposal was made, his
lordship had taken care to inquire if I understood the living
languages? He spoke a few sentences in French to me himself, and
attempted to do the same in Italian, but succeeded in the latter very
indifferently. My answers satisfied him that I was no stranger to
these studies.

The fact was, his lordship found it necessary to keep a secretary,
to aid him in his politics not only to write but to think; and I
afterward learned, from his valet, that he had allowed a hundred a
year to one who had left his service that very day. His lordship was
doubtless therefore well satisfied with the meeting of this morning,
in which he not only recovered his diamond repeater but rewarded the