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178 can fancy Abbot Samson standing at his monastery door, and regarding those thirteen pence very much as the Genoese consul must have regarded the Duke of Kingston's old spectacles, which the dowager duchess tendered him in return for his hospitality; or as Commodore Barnet regarded the paste emerald ring with which Lady Mary Wortley Montagu gracefully acknowledged the valuable services of his man-of-war.

"Lady Mary's avarice seems to have been generally credited at the time, though we have no proofs of it," says one of her recent biographers, who is disposed, and rightly, to put scant faith in Walpole's malicious jibes. But if the story of the ring be a true one, she can hardly be acquitted of amazing thrift, and of a still more amazing assurance. It is said that the gallant commodore, never doubting the worth of her token, was wont to show it with some ostentation to his friends, until one of them, who knew the lady well, stoutly maintained that if the stone were genuine she would never have parted with it, and a closer inspection proved the melancholy accuracy of his suspicions. As for much of her so-called