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new facings for his doublet, and cannot therefore be supposed to be accustomed to them.

Countess. Sir, I understand not your insinuation.

Bar. Regard him not, Madam: how should a mind, noble and delicate as your own, comprehend the unworthy thoughts of contemptible meanness?—Let me conduct you to company more deserving of you. Our fair hostess, I suppose, is already in her grotto.

Countess. No, she and my son are to follow me. But you must not go to the grotto with me now: nobody is to see it till the evening.

Bar. (offering to lead her out.) A step or two only.

Countess. O, not a step for the world. [, Baron kissing her hand as she goes off.

Bar. (turning fiercely upon Walt.) Thy unmannerly meanness is intolerable. Still hinting at the presents she receives. Greedy as thou call'st her, she never asked a gift from me in her life, excepting my picture in miniature, which could only be valuable to her as she prized the original.

Walt. Say rather, as her jeweller shall prize the goodly brilliants that surround it.

Bar. What do you mean?

Walt. What I should have told you before, if she had not interrupted us; that her trinket-broker is this very morning coming secretly, by appointment, to the castle, to treat with her