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 that rouge was the only succedaneum for health; but, really, I have known so many different causes for a lady's colour, such as flushing,—anger,—mauvaise honte,—and so forth, that I never dare decide to which it may be owing."

"As to such causes as them there," cried the Captain, "they must belong to those that they keep company with."

"Very true, Captain," said Sir Clement; "the natural complexion has nothing to do with occasional sallies of the passions, or any accidental causes."

"No, truly," returned the Captain, "for now here's me, why I look like any other man just now; and yet, if you were to put me in a passion, 'fore George, you'd soon see me have as fine a high colour as any painted Jezebel in all this place, be she never so bedaubed."

"But," said Lord Orville, "the difference of natural and of artificial colour, seems to me very easily discerned; that of Nature, is mottled, and varying; that of art, set, and too smooth; it wants that animation, that glow, that indescribable something which, even now that I see it, wholly surpasses all my powers of expression."

"Your Lordship," said Sir Clement, "is universally acknowledged to be a connoisseur in beauty."