Sir, you were not at our little ball, so you could not see that very fat Sir Richard paying his bored _devoirs_ to Dona Lucrezia! So I am left alone, and would be bored, but for you.

In return--a slight jest on Sir Richard to-night!--I will teach him that no fat gentleman should pay even bored attentions to a lady who soon will be fat, when his obvious duty should call him otherwhere! Bah! 'tis as though I myself were fat; which is not true." "You go too deep for me, Madam," I said.

"I am but a simple messenger." At the same time, I saw how admirably things were shaping for us all.

A woman's jealousy was with us, and so a woman's whim! "There you have the measure of England's sincerity," she went on, with contempt.

"England is selfish, that is all.