tented mind was the best sort of thanks to Heaven that an illiterate peasant could pay

-Or a learned prelate either, said I.

THE CASE OF DELICACY.

WHEN you have gained the top of Mount Taurira, you run presently down to Lyons-adieu then to all rapid movements! 'Tis a journey of caution; and it fares better with sentiments, not to be in a hurry with them; so I contracted with a voiturin to take his time with a couple of mules, and convey me in my own chaise safe to Turin through Savoy.

Poor, patient, quiet, honest people! fear not; your poverty, the treasury of your simple virtues, will not be envied you by the world, nor will your vallies be invaded by it.-Nature! in the midst of thy disorders, thou art still friendly to the scantiness thou hast created with all thy great works about thee, little hast thou left to give either to the scythe or to the sickle-but to that little thou grantest safety and protection, and sweet are the dwellings which stand so sheltered.

Let the way-worn traveller vent his complaints upon the sudden turns and dangers of your roadsyour rocks-your precipices-the difficulties of getting up the horrors of getting down-mountains impracticable-and cataracts, which roll down great stones from their summits, and block up his road.The peasants had been all day at work in removing a fragment of this kind between St. Michael and Madane; and by the time my voiturin got to the place, it wanted full two hours of completing, before a passage could any how be gained: there was nothing but to wait with patience-'twas a wet and tempestuous night; so that by the delay, and that together, the voiturin found himself obliged to take up five miles short of his stage, at a little decent kind of an inn by the road side.

I forthwith took possession of my bed-chambergot a good fire-ordered supper; and was thanking Heaven it was no worse when a voiture arrived with a lady in it and her servant-maid.

As there was no other bed-chamber in the house, the hostess, without much nicety, led them into mine, telling them, as she ushered them in, that there was nobody in it but an English gentlemanthat there were two good beds in it, and a closet within the room which held another-the accent in which she spoke of this third bed did not say much for it however, she said, there were three beds, and but three people and she durst say, the gentleman would do any thing to accommodate matters.I left not the lady a moment to make a conjecture about it-so instantly made a declaration I would do any thing in my power.

As this did not amount to an absolute surrender of my bed-chamber, I still felt myself so much the proprietor, as to have a right to do the honours of it-so I desired the lady to sit down-pressed her into the warmest seat-called for more wood-desired the hostess to enlarge the plan of the supper, and to favour us with the very best wine.

The lady had scarce warmed herself five minutes at the fire, before she began to turn her head back, and give a look at the beds; and the oftener she cast her eyes that way, the more they returned perplexed-I felt for her and for myself; for in a few minutes, what by her looks, and the case itself, I found myself as much embarrassed as it was possible the lady could be herself.

That the beds we were to lay in were in one and the same room, was enough simply by itself to have excited all this-but the position of them, for they stood parallel, and so very close to each other as only to allow space for a small wicker chair betwixt them, rendered the affair still more oppressive to us-they were fixed up moreover near the fire, and the projection of the chimney on one side, and a large beam which crossed the room on the other, formed a kind of recess for them that was no way favourable to the nicety of our sensatious if any thing could have added to it, it was, that the two beds were both of them so very small, as to cut us off from every idea of the lady and the maid lying together; which, in either of them, could it have been feasible, my lying beside them, though a thing not to be wished, yet there was nothing in it so terrible which the imagination might not have passed over without torment.

As for the little room within, it offered little or no consolation to us; 'twas a damp cold closet, with a half dismantled window-shutter, and with a window which had neither glass or oil paper in it to keep out the tempest of the night. I did not endeavour to stifle my cough when the lady gave a peep into it; so it reduced the case in course to this alternative-that the lady should sacrifice her health to her feelings, and take up with the closet herself, and abandon the bed next mine to her maid-or that the girl should take the closet, &c.

The lady was a Piedmontese of about thirty, 'with a glow of health in her cheeks. The maid was a Lyonnois of twenty, and as brisk and lively a French girl as ever moved. ----There were difficulties every way and the obstacle of the stone in the road, which brought us into the distress, great as it appeared whilst the peasants were removing it, was but a pebble to what lay in our ways now-I have only to add, that it did not lessen the weight which hung upon our spirits, that we were both too delicate to communicate what we felt to each other upon the occasion.

We sat down to supper; and had we not had more generous wine to it than a little inn in Savoy could have furnished, our tongues had been tied up, till Necessity herself had set them at liberty-but the lady having a few bottles of Burgundy in her voiture, sent down her fille de chambre for a couple of them; so that by the time supper was over, and we were left alone, we felt ourselves inspired with a strength of mind sufficient to talk, at least, without reserve upon our situation. We turned it every way, and debated and considered it in all kind of lights in the course of a two hours negociation; at the end of which the articles were settled finally betwixt us, and stipulated for in form and manner of a treaty of peace-and I believe with as much religion and good faith on both sides, as in any treaty which has yet had the honour of being handed down to posterity.

They were as follow:

First. As the right of the bed-chamber is in Monsieur-and he thinking the bed next to the fire to be the warmest, he insists upon the concession on the lady's side of taking up with it.

Granted, on the part of Madam; with a proviso, That as the curtains of that bed are of a flimsy transparent cotton, and appear likewise too scanty to draw close, that the fille de chambre shall fasten up the opening, either by corking pins, or needle and thread, in such manner as shall be deemed a sufficient barrier on the side of Monsieur.

2dly. It is required on the part of Madam, that Monsieur shall lay the whole night through in his robe de chambre.

Rejected: inasmuch Monsieur is not worth a robe de chambre; he having nothing in his port