"Well," said Signor Tirabaloschi, the most loquacious and sentimental of the guests, filling his glass, "these are hours to think of for the rest of life. But we cannot hope the Signora will long remember what we never can forget. Paris, says the French proverb, /est le paradis des femmes/: and in Paradise, I take it for granted, we recollect very little of what happened on earth." "Oh," said Madame de Montaigne, with a pretty musical laugh, "in Paris it is the rage to despise the frivolous life of cities, and to affect /des sentimens romanesques/. This is precisely the scene which our fine ladies and fine writers would die to talk of and to describe. Is it not so, /mon ami/?" and she turned affectionately to De Montaigne. "True," replied he; "but you are not worthy of such a scene--you laugh at sentiment and romance." "Only at French sentiment and the romance of the Chaussee d'Antin. You English," she continued, shaking her head at Maltravers, "have spoiled and corrupted us; we are not content to imitate you, we must excel you; we out-horror horror, and rush from the extravagant into the frantic!" "The ferment of the new school is, perhaps, better than the stagnation of the old," said Maltravers. "Yet even you," addressing himself to the Italians, "who first in Petrarch, in Tasso, and in Ariosto, set to Europe the example of the Sentimental and the Romantic; who built among the very ruins of the classic school, amidst its Corinthian columns and sweeping arches, the spires and battlements of the Gothic--even you are deserting your old models and guiding literature into newer and wilder paths. 'Tis the way of the world--eternal progress is eternal change." "Very possibly," said Signor Tirabaloschi, who understood nothing of what was said. "Nay, it is extremely profound; on reflection, it is beautiful--superb! you English are so--so--in short, it is admirable. Ugo Foscolo is a great genius--so is Monti; and as for Rossini,--you know his last opera--/cosa stupenda/!" Madame de Montaigne glanced at Maltravers, clapped her little hands, and laughed outright. Maltravers caught the contagion, and laughed also. But he hastened to repair the pedantic error he had committed of talking over the heads of the company. He took up the guitar, which, among their musical instruments, the serenaders had brought, and after touching its chords for a few moments, said: "After all, Madame, in your society, and with this moonlit lake before us, we feel as if music were our best medium of conversation. Let us prevail upon these gentlemen to delight us once more."