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170 but Cecil was not in a humour to be pleased. Miss Arabin, seeing he was graver than his wont, looked as sad as she conveniently could—gravity and sensibility being, with her, synonymous. She talked of withered flowers and blighted feelings—of the worthlessness of fortune when weighed in the scale of affection—and of the little real happiness there is in this world; till Cecil took refuge from them both, by being suddenly most deeply interested in a discussion carrying on opposite to him, about the facilities of going by steam to Timbuctoo. The consequence was, that Miss Arabin said he was such a coxcomb, and Mde. de St. Ligne that he was si bête. "To me," remarked Lord Mandeville, "there is something very melancholy in the many valuable lives which have been sacrificed during the course of African discovery. But I believe that travelling is as much a passion as love, poetry, or ambition. What of less force than a passion could, in the first instance, induce men to fix their thoughts on undertakings whose difficulties and dangers were at once so obvious and so many? What but a passion (and the energy of passion is wonderful) could support them through toil, hardship, and suffering—all in