"Oh, bless you! talking of breaking fans, I am unlucky. Did my wife ever show you a magnificent Chinese fan, given to her by Madame de Vaudémont? Well, I broke that!" And, having delivered himself of these comforting words, M. de Lucenay again threw himself back on the divan he had been lounging on, but, with his accustomed gaucherie, contrived to pitch himself over the back of it, on to the ground, grasping in his hand a quantity of the floating wreaths of climbing plants which depended from the boughs of the trees under which the party was sitting, and which he had been, for some time, amusing himself with essaying to catch, as, moved by the light breeze admitted into the place, they undulated gracefully over his head. The suddenness of his fall brought down, not only those he held, but the parent stems belonging to them; and poor De Lucenay was so covered by the mass of foliage thus unexpectedly obtained, that, ere he could thoroughly disengage himself from their circling tendrils, he presented the appearance of some monarch of May-day crowned with his leafy diadem. So whimsical an appearance as he presented drew down roars of deafening, stunning laughter; much to the annoyance of Madame d'Harville, who would quickly have got out of the vicinity of so awkward and unpleasant a person had she not perceived M. Charles Robert (the commandant of Madame Pipelet's accounts) advancing from the other end of the gallery; and, unwilling to appear as though going to meet him, she once more resumed her seat beside M. de Lucenay. "I say, Lady Macgregor," vociferated the incorrigible De Lucenay, "didn't I look preciously like a wild man of the woods, or the god Pan, or a sylvan, or a naiad, or some of those savage creatures, with that green wreath round my head? Oh, but talking of savages," added he, abruptly approaching Sarah, "Lady Macgregor, I must tell you a most outrageously indecent story. Just imagine that at Otaheite--" "My lord duke--" interrupted Sarah, in a tone of freezing rebuke. "Just as you like,--you are not obliged to hear my story if you don't like it; you are the loser, that's all. Ah! I see Madame de Fonbonne out there; I shall keep it for her; she is a dear, kind creature, and will be delighted to hear it; so I'll save it for her." Madame de Fonbonne was a fat little woman, of about fifty years of age, very pretending, and very ridiculous. Her fat double chin rested on her equally fat throat; and she was continually talking, with upturned eyes, of her tender, her sensitive soul; the languor of her soul; the craving of her soul; the aspirations of her soul. To these disadvantages, she added the additional one of being particularly ill-dressed, upon the present occasion, in a horrible-looking copper-coloured turban, with a sprinkling of green flowers over it. "Yes," again asserted De Lucenay, in his loudest voice, "that charming anecdote shall be told to Madame de Fonbonne."