Elinor looked at Jane, to see if she seemed to sympathize in Adeline's story; but her cousin's beautiful face was still bright with the glow of pleasure from meeting her friend; no other thought or feeling was to be traced there. "I don't believe they have any such fun in Paris, Mr. Hazlehurst." "Not exactly.--They have a pleasantry of their own, however, which is quite agreeable." "I don't think I should like it. They say, a young lady dares not speak to gentlemen, nor walk with them, nor have the least bit of a flirtation. How stupid it must be!" "But the French girls do talk to gentlemen, I assure you," replied Jane, "only they are not intimate with everybody. The young men are very attentive, too; they treat young girls with much more respect, Louisa says, than in America." "Who cares for respect! I want to laugh and amuse myself, and have my own way," exclaimed Adeline. "It is growing quite warm here--you will find it pleasanter in the drawing-room, Miss Taylor;" said Elinor, not caring to listen any longer to Jane's giddy friend. "Well, if you please, I'll run up to Jane s room, and look at the fashions--I am dying to see some of her capes and collars. By-the-bye, I had forgotten two very important things. Here is a note for your aunt, Miss Elinor; some private communication from Ma; the coachman will take the answer. And then, I came over to ask you all to drink tea with us, this evening, very sociably; nobody but your own family and three or four friends!" The invitation was accepted, as a matter of course. "Good morning, Mr. Hazlehurst; I expect to be shut up with Jane, for three hours to come; I have really talked myself out of breath; but that is always the way, with me, as you know, of old." And the two girls, hand-in-hand, ran lightly up stairs, where Elinor, making an excuse of Mrs. Taylor's note, left them to a confidential tete-a-tete. CHAPTER XI. "A soldier may be anything, if brave; So may a merchant if not quite a knave." COWPER. "Trade his delight and hope; and, if alive, Doubt I have none, that Barnaby will thrive." CRABBE. {William Cowper (English poet, 1731-1800), "Hope" lines 201-210. George Crabbe (English poet, 1754-1832), "Posthumous Tales: VIII Barnaby; the Shopman" lines II.3-4} WE have really been very remiss in omitting so long to notice the rapid strides with which Mr. Pompey Taylor had advanced on the road to fame and fortune, during the two years in which we have lost sight of him. He might have addressed, to the reader, the remark that the Emperor Napoleon applied to his secretary, after the conquest of Prussia and Austria: "J'ai fait des progres immenses depuis que Bourienne {sic} m'a quitte!" {"J'ai fait des..." = I have made immense progress since Bourienne left me! Louis-Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne (1769-1834) was a French diplomat who served as Napoleon's private secretary during his invasion of Egypt}