"I shall set off for Golconda to-morrow," cried Wharton.
"Don't!" interrupted Lady Mary; "it would be too mortifying, when you come back, to find how little we had missed you."
"O, you would miss me," returned he, laughing, "precisely because you ought not. I hope that you have heard the proposed alteration in the commandments at the last political meeting at Houghton? Hanbury suggested that the 'not' should, in future, be omitted; but Doddington objected, as people might leave off doing wrong if it became a duty. At all events, they would not steal, covet, and bear false witness against their neighbour, with half the relish that they do at present."
"Ah," replied Lady Mary, " we make laws, and we follow customs. By the first we cut off our own pleasures; and by the second, make ourselves answerable for the follies of others."
"Well, Lady Mary," replied Wharton,
