much finesse of breeding utterly thrown away."

"I am equally gratified and vexed at all this; gratified and infinitely
flattered to find that I have not passed before your eyes like the common
herd, who leave no traces of even their features behind them; and vexed at
finding myself in a situation that, I fear, you fancy excessively
ridiculous?"

"Oh, one hardly dare to attach such consequences to acts of young men, or
young women either, in an age as original as our own. I saw nothing
particularly absurd but the introduction;--and so many absurder have since
passed, that this is almost forgotten."

"And the name--?"

"--Is certainly a keen one. If I am not mistaken, when we were in Italy
you were content to let your servant bear it; but, venturing among a
people so noted for sagacity as the Yankees, I suppose you have fancied it
was necessary to go armed _cap-a-pie_."

Both laughed lightly, as if they equally enjoyed the pleasantry, and then
he resumed:

"But I sincerely hope you do not impute improper motives to the
incognito?"

"I impute it to that which makes many young men run from Rome to Vienna,
or from Vienna to Paris; which causes you to sell the _vis-a-vis_ to buy a
_dormeuse_; to know your friends to-day, and to forget them to-morrow; or,
in short, to do a hundred other things that can be accounted for on no