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That, it must be owned, is difficult to explain.

O, now I have it! She became tired of sitting in the corner unnoticed, and has heard no doubt of some lady captivating every heart by her lively and generous enthusiasm; so she has rushed from her tackle of footstools and decorum, like a brig cut from the stocks, and set herself afloat on the ocean of fashion. By my faith, and she has made a good cruise of it too!

Perhaps your conjecture is not far from the truth.

How came this goose of a lord to be taken in by it?

By that which has taken in many, both lords and commoners, ere now;—his own obtrusive eagerness for praise, which had tired out everybody.

And received this new stream of flattery like rain upon the parched sands of Araby.

Even so: to say nothing of a wife lately dead, who would never say one civil thing of all the