exchange one disquietude for another, and with loss. Figure to yourself, my dear Sir, that in giving you a chaise which would fall to pieces before you had got half way to Paris,-figure to yourself how much I should suffer, in giving an ill impression of myself to a man of honour, and lying at the mercy, as I must do, d'un homme d'esprit.

The dose was made up exactly after my own prescription; so I could not help taking it,-and returning Mons. Dessein his bow, without more casuistry we walked together towards his remise, to take a view of his magazine of chaises.

Ir must needs be a hostile kind of a world, when the buyer (if it be but of a sorry postchaise) cannot go forth with the seller thereof into the street to determine the difference betwixt them, but he instantly falls into the same frame of mind, and views his conventionist with the same sort of eye, as if he was going along with him to Hyde Park Corner to fight a duel. For my own part, being but a poor swordsman, and no way a match for Mons. Dessein, I felt the rotation of all the movements within me to which the situation is incident;-1 looked at Monsieur Dessein through

and through,-eyed him as he walked along in profile, then en face; thought he looked like a Jew,-then a Turk,—disliked his wig,-cursed him by my gods,-wished him at the Devil!

And is all this to be lighted up in the heart for a beggarly account of three or four louis d'or, which is the most I can be overreached in?-Base passion!-turning myself about, as a man naturally does upon a sudden reverse of sentiment,-base, ungentle passion! thy hand is against every man, and every man's hand against thee.--Heaven forbid! said she, raising her hand up to her forehead, for I had turned full in front upon the lady whom I had seen in conference with the monk she had followed us unperceived.- Heaven forbid, indeed! said I, offering her my own; -she had a black pair of silk gloves, open only at the thumb and two fore-fingers, so accepted it without reserve, and I led her up to the door of the remise.

Monsieur Dessein had diabled the key above fifty times before he found out he had come with a wrong one in his hand : we

were as impatient as himself to have it opened, and so attentive to the obstacle that I continued holding her hand almost without knowing it; so that Mons. Dessein left us together, with her hand in mine, and with our faces turned towards the door of the remise, and said he would be back in five minutes.

Now, a colloquy of five minutes, in such a situation, is worth one of as many ages, with your faces turned towards the street. In the latter case 'tis drawn from the objects and occurrences without;-when your eyes are fixed upon a dead blank -you draw purely from yourselves. A silence of a single moment, upon Mons. Dessein's leaving us, had been fatal to

the situation, she had infaillibly turned about;-so I began the conversation instantly.

-But what were the temptations (as I write not to apologize for the weakness of my heart in this tour,-but to give an account of them)-shall be described with the same simplicity with which I felt them.

WHEN I told the reader that I did not care to get out of the desobligeant, because I saw the monk in close conference with the lady just arrived at the inn, I told him the truth; but I did not tell him the whole truth; for was full as much restrained by the appearance and figure of the lady he was

talking to. Suspicion crossed my brain, and said he was telling her what had passed: something jarred upon it within me,-I wished him at his convent.

'When the heart flies out before the understanding, it saves the judgment a world of pains. I was certain she was of a better order of beings :-however, I thought no more of her, but 'went on and wrote my preface.