to present me, carried herself very civilly towards me, and made me many pretty compliments, the which I was at much pains to return, though I can’t but fear that I stumbled sadly in my French. And all the guests being now arrived, my lord marquis asked of me to be good enough to divert them with the relation of my adventures, but Madam Heliodora, observing that I still seemed weary, bade a servant bring a tabouret and set it for me before the daïs. And upon this my lord sat down upon his throne, and desired of all the company to be seated likewise, which was done according to their degrees, and indeed it was pretty to see the art with which each person took his own place, the better sort upon chairs, and the rest upon the long seat that ran round the saloon. And I being set in the midst upon my folding-stool, my lord requested of me to begin, and thereupon I told them in little that which I have already told you, saving that of course I made no mention of my private matters. And when I had done, all present testified much sympathy with me, for the French love the Inquisition no more than we do, nor hath it ever been allowed in their country of late years, and there was more than one there that could tell sad tales of that which had happened to friends or kin that had brought themselves under the power thereof in Portingale, Spain, or the Indies. Now after my history was done went we to supper, that was set out in another chamber with great magnificence, and such ceremony was in the going thither as I never saw, my lord going first, leading Madam Heliodora his daughter, and after him his next in command with Mad. de Chesnac, and after them the rest of us according to our degrees. And at the supper, being the newest arrived of those there, it was granted me to sit beside Madam Heliodora, to my no small contentment, for I found my eyes and thoughts fixed continually upon this lady, so prodigiously was I constrained to admire both her countenance and her wit. And at different times she was so obliging as to honour me with her special attention, asking me concerning my home, and my father and Dorothy, with so much kindness, and yet with so great gravity withal, that I could no more have answered her falsely (even if I had had any mind thereto), nor sought evasion in my replies, than if an angel from heaven had been speaking with me. And she, receiving my answers, did speak with me concerning those my friends in England as gently and as wisely as if she had been a queen and I her subject, or she my sister and I her young brother. It seems likely to me now, that my three years in prison had made me look to be much younger than in reality I was, imparting to my complexion a certain delicacy and youthfulness, and this, though my face, when I saw it in the glass, had to me the appearance of that of an old man. Likewise my hair helped to this effect, not being yet grown again, but hanging in my neck like a