“He tells me,” said I, gravely, “that he is quite accable with his bonnes fortunes--possibly he flatters himself that even you are not perfectly inaccessible to his addresses.” “Tell me, Mr. Pelham,” said the fair Mrs. Green, “can you pass by this street about half past twelve to-night?” “I will make a point of doing so,” replied I, not a little surprised by the remark. “Do,” said she, “and now let us talk of old England.” When we went away I told Vincent of my appointment. “What!” said he, “eclipse Monsieur Margot! Impossible!” “You are right,” replied I, “nor is it my hope; there is some trick afloat of which we may as well be spectators.” “De tout mon coeur!” answered Vincent; “let us go till then to the Duchesse de G----.” I assented, and we drove to the Rue de--. The Duchesse de G--was a fine relict of the ancien regime--tall and stately, with her own grey hair crepe, and surmounted by a high cap of the most dazzling blonde. She had been one of the earliest emigrants, and had stayed for many months with my mother, whom she professed to rank amongst her dearest friends. The duchesse possessed to perfection that singular melange of ostentation and ignorance which was so peculiar to the ante-revolutionists. She would talk of the last tragedy with the emphatic tone of a connoisseur, in the same breath that she would ask, with Marie Antoinette, why the poor people were so clamorous for bread when they might buy such nice cakes for two-pence a-piece? “To give you an idea of the Irish,” said she one day to an inquisitive marquess, “know that they prefer potatoes to mutton!” Her soirees were among the most agreeable at Paris--she united all the rank and talent to be found in the ultra party, for she professed to be quite a female Maecenas; and whether it was a mathematician or a romance-writer, a naturalist or a poet, she held open house for all, and conversed with each with equal fluency and self-satisfaction. A new play had just been acted, and the conversation, after a few preliminary hoverings, settled upon it. “You see,” said the duchesse, “that we have actors, you authors; of what avail is it that you boast of a Shakspeare, since your Liseton, great as he is, cannot be compared with our Talma?” “And yet,” said I, preserving my gravity with a pertinacity, which nearly made Vincent and the rest of our compatriots assembled lose their’s “Madame must allow, that there is a striking resemblance in their persons, and the sublimity of their acting?” “Pour ca, j’en conviens,” replied this ‘critique de l’Ecole des Femmes.’ “Mais cependant Liseton n’a pas la Nature! l’ame! la grandeur de Talma!” “And will you then allow us no actors of merit?” asked Vincent. “Mais oui!--dans le genre comique, par exemple, votre buffo Kean met dix fois plus d’esprit et de drollerie dans ses roles que La Porte.”