"No, Sir."
"So I did presume. Doubtless, Ma'am, every thing must be infinitely novel to you. Our customs, our manners, and les etiquettes de nous autres, can have very little resemblance to those you have been used to. I imagine, Ma'am, your retirement is at no very small distance from the capital?"
I was so much disconcerted at this sneering speech, that I said not a word; though I have since thought my vexation both stimulated and delighted him.
"The air we breathe here, however, Ma'am," (continued he, very conceitedly) "though foreign to that you have been accustomed to, has not, I hope, been at variance with your health?"
"Mr. Lovel," said Lord Orville, "could not your eye have spared that question?"
"O, my Lord," answered he, "if health were the only cause of a lady's bloom, my eye, I grant, had been infallible from the first glance; but—"
"Come, come," cried Mrs. Mirvan, "I must beg no insinuations of that sort; Miss Anville's colour, as you have successfully tried, may, you see, be heightened;—but I assure you, it would be past your skill to lessen it."
"'Pon honour, Madam," returned he, "you wrong me; I presumed not to inferthat
