“It is very a propos,” whispered the epicier, caressing the peruque a little too roughly in his emotion. Mr. Love gave him a kick under the table, and put his finger to his own bald head, and then to his nose, significantly. The intelligent epicier smoothed back the irritated peruque. “Are you fond of bon-bons, Mademoiselle Adele? I have a very fine stock at home,” said Monsieur Goupille. Mademoiselle Adele de Courval sighed: “Helas! they remind me of happier days, when I was a petite and my dear grandmamma took me in her lap and told me how she escaped the guillotine: she was an emigree, and you know her father was a marquis.” The epicier bowed and looked puzzled. He did not quite see the connection between the bon-bons and the guillotine. “You are triste, Monsieur,” observed Madame Beavor, in rather a piqued tone, to the Pole, who had not said a word since the roti. “Madame, an exile is always triste: I think of my pauvre pays.” “Bah!” cried Mr. Love. “Think that there is no exile by the side of a belle dame.” The Pole smiled mournfully. “Pull it,” said Madame Beavor, holding a cracker to the patriot, and turning away her face. “Yes, madame; I wish it were a cannon in defence of La Pologne.” With this magniloquent aspiration, the gallant Sovolofski pulled lustily, and then rubbed his fingers, with a little grimace, observing that crackers were sometimes dangerous, and that the present combustible was d’une force immense. “Helas! J’ai cru jusqu’a ce jour Pouvoir triompher de l’amour,” [Alas! I believed until to-day that I could triumph over love.] said Madame Beavor, reading the motto. “What do you say to that?” “Madame, there is no triumph for La Pologne!” Madame Beavor uttered a little peevish exclamation, and glanced in despair at her red-headed countryman. “Are you, too, a great politician, sir?” said she in English. “No, mem!--I’m all for the ladies.” “What does he say?” asked Madame Caumartin. “Monsieur Higgins est tout pour les dames.” “To be sure he is,” cried Mr. Love; “all the English are, especially with that coloured hair; a lady who likes a passionate adorer should always marry a man with gold-coloured hair--always. What do you say, Mademoiselle Adele?” “Oh, I like fair hair,” said Mademoiselle, looking bashfully askew at Monsieur Goupille’s peruque. “Grandmamma said her papa--the marquis--used yellow powder: it must have been very pretty.” “Rather a la sucre d’ orge,” remarked the epicier, smiling on the right side of his mouth, where his best teeth were. Mademoiselle de Courval looked displeased. “I fear you are a republican, Monsieur Goupille.” “I, Mademoiselle. No; I’m for the Restoration;” and again the epicier perplexed himself to discover the association of idea between republicanism and sucre d’orge. “Another glass of wine. Come, another,” said Mr. Love, stretching across the Vicomte to help Madame Canmartin.