"Don't speak of it, dearest Count. I am, indeed, not well."
"Indeed not? And that malady attacks you in the very moment in which I feel myself well again the first time?"
"Dearest, best Count; for God's sake, don't be bitter. I cannot, I cannot bear it to day."
"Bitter!" he exclaimed, with a mien which was ten times more so. "It is, indeed, the first time to day that any person taxes me with it. I was not bitter while I was unfortunate; it must therefore originate in my happiness. "But," added he, in a soothing accent, "do you really think that I am such a bad and inattentive observer, that I should not have seen at whom your tenderest and most burning looks were directed?"
"Pray, tell me, at whom were they directed?"
"The former at my fair neighbour, and the latter at myself. The tears, thatstarted
