"But if he loves you as much as you say, and yet it comes to nothing in the end, he will be made miserable."
"Of course he will break his heart. I should be shocked and disappointed if he didn't."
"I wonder whether this M. Isidore is a fool?' said I.
"He is, about me; but he is wise in other things, à ce qu' on dit. Mrs. Cholmondeley considers him extremely clever: she says he will push his way by his talents; all I know is, that he does little more than sigh in my presence, and that I can wind him round my little finger."
Wishing to get a more definite idea of this love-stricken M. Isidore, whose position seemed to me of the least secure, I requested her to favour me with a personal description; but she could not describe: she had neither words, nor the power of putting them together so as to make graphic phrases. She even seemed not properly to have noticed him: nothing of his looks, of the changes in his countenance, had touched her heart or dwelt in her memory—that he was "beau, mais plutôt bel homme, que joli garçon," was all she could assert. My patience would often have failed, and my in-
