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which humiliation she has only rewarded me with mocking: had you done the same, Baron, you would, perhaps, have fared no better.

Count Claudien, the freedom of a careless stranger may be some excuse for your intrusion here, but can be none for her excluding me on pretences so frivolous; for the alleged indisposition is, I perceive, only the being indisposed for my company, who am an old and faithful friend; ay, and her kinsman to boot.

My noble baron, you and I are rivals, and rest our pretensions here on very different foundations; you on being known to the lady, I on the reverse. But I am the wiser of the two.

How so, I pray?

Is it not a notorious fact, that strangers of any apparent likelihood always occupy the vantage ground in every woman's favour? Had the fair Rosella known me as long as she has known you, she might have discovered in me as many faults, perhaps, as would have excluded me from the very threshold of her vestibule.

So you see, my dear cousin, that the wisest