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 you at the concert!" cried Miss Bydel: "I should not be sorry to speak a word or two to him myself. You were one of the passengers, I think, Sir, who came over in the same boat with Mrs. Maple? And glad enough you must have been to have got back; though I suppose you were only there upon business, Sir?"

"Not a whit, Madam! not a whit, faith! I never make bad better. I make that a rule. I always state the worst, that is to say the truth, in my own case as well as in my neighbour's."

"Why then pray, Sir, if it's no secret,—what might be the reason of your going over to such a place?"

"Curiosity, Madam! Neither more nor less. I was agog to know what those famous Mounseers were about; and whether there were any Revolution really going forward amongst them, or not. For I used often to think they invented tales here in England, basking by their own fire-sides, that had not an atom of