am ashamed to confess, I was piqued and mortified, because I fancied it interfered with the rights of Seymour; and I suspected that, if he should repay the regard of the mother by loving the daughter, I could not without disobedience remain constant to my first attachment. As De Walden was not to go to college till October, he had leave to stay with us till that time, since it was rather an unusual thing for a fine young man, unless he was a relation, to be the guest of a widow lady and her daughter for so long a period. I was therefore certain that my mother must have some particular point to carry, and that point was, I believed, the alienation of my heart from Seymour Pendarves. These suspicions certainly made me regard Ferdinand the two first days of his arrival with prejudiced eyes, not unmixed with fear of his keenness of penetration. But, in spite of myself, my fear of him vanished, and much of my prejudice with it, when I found that this grave sententious personage, who talked theology with my mother, and tried, poor man! to explain to us some new German philosophy, could laugh as heartily as if he never read and never thought, and had a sense of the ridiculous, which he found sometimes dangerous and troublesome to his good-breeding. This welcome discovery happened to me at breakfast, while he was reading to us aloud some amusing extracts from a kind of periodical paper, published in France by the Baron De Grimm, one of which was so ludicrous, that he laid down the book to laugh at his ease, while I exclaimed, "Is it possible?" "Is what possible, my dear?" said my mother. "That Mr. De Walden," I repeated rather uncivilly, "can laugh so very heartily." "_N'est-il pas permis en Angleterre, Mademoiselle?_"[2] was his answer. [Footnote 2: Is it not permitted in England?] "Oh, yes!" said I, blushing, and looking very foolish, "only--" "Oh! Je comprends: apparemment c'est Mademoiselle qui ne veut pas qu'on rit devant elle. Hélas, belle Helène! il faut rire tant qu'on le peut, quand on a le bonheur de jouir souvent de votre aimable société; car il me semble qu'en ce cas là, on pourroit bien avoir raison de pleurer bientôt, et peut-être pour la vie."[3] [Footnote 3: Oh! I comprehend: you do not like any should laugh in your presence. Alas! beautiful Helen, one must laugh while one can, when one has the happiness of being in your society; for one runs the risk of crying very soon, and perhaps for life.] Here was _gallantry_ too, and returning good for evil; though I was rude, he was polite. I was humbled and ashamed, while he with increasing archness said, "_Mais qu'est-ce que vous voulez dire avec votre_--'Is it possible?'[4] What! you think me a disciple of Crassus, and fancy me never laugh till I see an ass eat a thistle?" he added in his foreign English. [Footnote 4: But what did you mean with your 'Is it possible?']