“No, I have never met them,” answered Emmeline, commanding her voice as well as she could, though she felt her face was to a great degree betraying her feelings. “You surprise me,” continued her tormenter. “But I suppose you and my friend Lord Fitzhenry have been ruralizing, and sentimentalizing alone in the country, _à la mode Anglaise_, since your marriage, and I cannot wonder at either of you preferring that to the most agreeable society,” added she, with a complimentary smile. “After Easter, I suppose every body will be in town; and I trust Lady Florence will then return among the number, for I really feel quite in a strange country. I am now so little used to the forms, and cold, stiff proprieties of English ways, that, to tell the truth, I find London very dull and stupid, and was really delighted to-night, when I saw Lord Fitzhenry, to talk over delightful foreign days with him. Mr. Pelham, don’t you find English society much changed for the worse? I think my country folks are pleasanter any where than in their own land; for, here they directly put on their native buckram again, and are so prodigiously good and proper, that there is no living with them.” “I can’t agree with you,” replied Pelham. “I am so stupid, as to like them better at home: abroad, they are too apt to cast off some of the restraints which the opinions of their own country oblige them to submit to, without adopting those of the nations they visit. In short, the case is the same with manners as with religion;—they cease to be protestants without becoming catholics; and they take advantage of the usual laxity of morals and principles of other countries, without acquiring that outward decorum of manner, which at least prevents such conduct from offending the innocent; without, in short, adopting that excusable hypocrisy, which a French author so justly calls _l’hommage que le vice rend à la vertu_, an English woman rarely ceases to be virtuous, without becoming coarse; a foreigner may understand _le metier_ better, but my own opinion is—that there are few of my countrywomen much the better for a long residence on the continent.” “The present company always excepted, of course,” said Mrs. Osterley, bowing to him. “Mr. Pelham is no complimenter, as I dare say you find, Lady Fitzhenry; for I believe you have the pleasure of being intimately acquainted with him.” Fortunately for Emmeline, a new waltz just then began; and Fitzhenry, to make up for his former negligence, came again to claim Mrs. Osterley as his partner, although seemingly against his will. As they went away together, Emmeline heard her say to Fitzhenry— “I am not sure I admire your Lady Fitzhenry so much on nearer view as I did at first sight. She is terribly _English_; so cold and distant—and I see already she dislikes me for being the reverse; _et que je n’ai pas l’honneur de lui plaire_.”