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 edness goes forward here."—"Why don't you drink, Peter?"

"I do, I do, thank your love." Two or three glasses opened his heart still more freely. "To tell you the truth, Mr. Ernest, my master, the Count, is but a bad man, for seeing he has got all the fortune, he might have let his brother keep his wife to himself."

"How! why, sure! why, you do not think he wants to separate them, do you?"

"Bless your soul, why they be leagued together, and to my mind Madame Claudina loves him more than ever she did her husband."

"Astonishing!" cried Ernest.

"Yes, 'tis astonishing to be sure, because Mr. Ferdinand is a much handsomer man; but I'll let you know the whole if you'll be secret."

"You know I am no talker, Peter."

"Nor more you ar'n't, for you never made mischief on any poor servant, so I'll tell you, then, as sure as you be alive, Madame is a breeding."