But, for my part, I feel that there are some small faults more difficult to me to confess than any large ones. Affectation, for instance; it is something so little, so paltry, it is more than a crime, it is a ridicule: I believe I did make myself completely ridiculous; I am glad Lord Davenant was not by, it lasted but a short time. Our dear good friend Dumont (you knew Dumont at Florence?) could not bear to see it; his regard for Lord Davenant urged him the more to disenchant me, and bring me back, before his return, to my natural form. The disenchantment was rather rude. “One evening, after I had been snuffing up incense till I was quite intoxicated, when my votaries had departed, and we were alone together, I said to him, ‘Allow that this is what would be called at Paris, _un grand succés_.’ “Dumont made no reply, but stood opposite to me playing in his peculiar manner with his great snuff-box, slowly swaying the snuff from side to side. Knowing this to be a sign that he was in some great dilemma, I asked of what he was thinking. ‘Of you,’ said he. ‘And what of me?’ In his French accent he repeated those two provoking lines-- ‘New wit, like wine, intoxicates the brain, Too strong for feeble women to sustain.’ “‘To my face?’ said I, smiling, for I tried to command my temper. “‘Better than behind your back, as others do,’ said he. “‘Behind my back!’ said I; ‘impossible.’ “‘Perfectly possible,’ said he, ‘as I could prove if you were strong enough to bear it.’ “‘Quite strong enough,’ I said, and bade him speak on. “‘Suppose you were offered,’ said he, ‘the fairy-ring that rendered the possessor invisible, and enabled him to hear every thing that was said, and all that was thought of him, would you throw it away, or put it on your finger?’ “‘Put it on my finger,’ I replied; ‘and this instant, for a true friend is better than a magic ring, I put it on.’ “‘You are very brave,’ said he, ‘then you shall hear the lines I heard in a rival salon, repeated by him who last wafted the censer to you to-night.’ He repeated a kind of doggrel pasquinade, beginning with-- ‘Tell me, gentles, have you seen, The prating she, the mock Corinne?’