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'maid, who had overheard some discourse between her mistress and me. Indeed people, I 'believe, always deceive themselves, who imagine they can conceal distrest circumstances from their servants; for these are always extremely 'quicksighted on such occasions.'

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Good Heaven!' cries Miss Matthews, how astonishing is such behaviour in so low a fellow!' 'I thought so myself,' answered Booth; and

' yet I know not, on a more strict examination into the matter, why we should be more surprised to 'see greatness of mind discover itself in one degree or rank of life, than in another. Love, bene'volence, or what you will please to call it, may be the reigning passion in a beggar as well as in a prince; and wherever it is, its energies will be 'the same.

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'To confess the truth, I am afraid we often compliment what we call upper life, with too 'much injustice, at the expense of the lower. As it is no rare thing to see instances which degrade 'human nature in persons of the highest birth and education, so I apprehend, that examples of whatever is really great and good, have been 'sometimes found amongst those who have wanted 'all such advantages. In reality, palaces, I make no doubt, do sometimes contain nothing but 'dreariness and darkness, and the sun of righteousness hath shone forth with all its glory in a cottage.'

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CHAP. VIII.

The Story of Booth continued.

MR. Booth thus went on:

'We now took leave of the garrison, and having landed at Marseilles, arrived at Montpelier, without any thing happening to us worth re'membrance, except the extreme sea-sickness of poor Amelia; but I was afterwards well repaid for the terrors which it occasioned me, by the good consequences which attended it; for I be lieve it contributed even more than the air of Montpelier, to the perfect re-establishment of 'her health.'

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'I ask your pardon, for interrupting you,' cries Miss Matthews, but you never satisfied me whe'ther you took the sergeant's money.- -You "have made me half in love with that charming ' fellow.'

'How can you imagine, Madam,' answered Booth, I should have taken from a poor fellow what was of so little consequence to me, and at 'the same time of so much to him ?-Perhaps, now, you will derive this from the passion of pride.

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Indeed,' says she, 'I neither derive it from the passion of pride, nor from the passion of folly : 'but methinks you should have accepted the offer, and I am convinced you hurt him very much ' when you refused it. But pray proceed in your story.' Then Booth went on as follows:

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As Amelia recovered her health and spirits daily, we began to pass our time very pleasantly at Montpelier; for the greatest enemy to the 'French will acknowledge, that they are the best people in the world to live amongst for a little while. In some countries it is almost as easy to

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'get a good estate as a good acquaintance. In England, particularly, acquaintance is of almost 'as slow growth as an oak; so that the age of man scarce suffices to bring it to any perfection, and 'families seldom contract any great intimacy till the third, or at least the second generation. So shy indeed are we English of letting a stranger into our houses, that one would imagine we re'garded all such as thieves. Now the French are 'the very reverse. Being a stranger among them 'entitles you to the better place, and to the greater degree of civility; and if you wear but the pearance of a gentleman, they never suspect you are not one. Their friendship indeed seldom extends so far as their purse; nor is such friendship usual in other countries. To say the truth, po'liteness carries friendship far enough in the ordi6 nary occasions of life, and those who want this accomplishment, rarely make amends for it by their sincerity; for bluntness, or rather rudeness, as it commonly deserves to be called, is not always so much a mark of honesty as it is taken to be.

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"The day after our arrival we became acquainted with Mons. Bagillard. He was a Frenchman of great wit and vivacity, with a greater share of learning than gentlemen are usually possessed of. 'As he lodged in the same house with us, we were 'immediately acquainted, and I liked his conversation so well, that I never thought I had too much of his company. Indeed, I spent so much of my time with him, that Amelia (I know not whether I ought to mention it) grew uneasy at our familiarity, and complained of my being too little with her, from my violent fondness for my 'new acquaintance; for our conversation turning chiefly upon books, and principally Latin ones (for we read several of the classics together), she 'could have but little entertainment by being with 6 us. When my wife had once taken it into her

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head that she was deprived of my company by 'M. Bagillard, it was impossible to change her

opinion; and though I now spent more of my 'time with her than I had ever done before, she 'still grew more and more dissatisfied, till, at last, 'she very earnestly desired me to quit my lodg'ings, and insisted upon it with more vehemence 'than I had ever known her express before. To say the truth, if that excellent woman could ever be thought unreasonable, I thought she was so on this occasion.

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But in what light soever her desires appeared 'to me, as they manifestly arose from an affection ' of which I had daily the most endearing proofs, 'I resolved to comply with her, and accordingly removed to a distant part of the town; for it is my opinion, that we can have but little love for the person whom we will never indulge in an un' reasonable demand. Indeed, I was under a dif'ficulty with regard to Mons. Bagillard; for as I 'could not possibly communicate to him the true 'reason for quitting my lodgings; so I found it as 'difficult to deceive him by a counterfeit one; besides, I was apprehensive I should have little less of his company than before. I could, indeed, have avoided this dilemma by leaving Mont'pelier; for Amelia had perfectly recovered her health; but I had faithfully promised Captain 'James to wait his return from Italy, whither he was gone some time before from Gibraltar; nor ' was it proper for Amelia to take any long journey, she being now near six months gone with

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"This difficulty, however, proved to be less than I had imagined it; for my French friend, whe'ther he suspected any thing from my wife's behaviour, though she never, as I observed, shewed 'him the least incivility, became suddenly as cold 'on his side. After our leaving the lodgings, he

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'never made above two or three formal visits; indeed, his time was soon after entirely taken up by an intrigue with a certain countess, which blazed all over Montpelier.

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'We had not been long in our new apartments before an English officer arrived at Montpelier, and came to lodge in the same house with us. This gentleman, whose name was Bath, was of the rank of a major, and had so much singularity in his character, that, perhaps, you never 'heard of any like him. He was far from having any of those bookish qualifications, which had before caused my Amelia's disquiet. It is true, "his discourse generally turned on matters of no 'feminine kind; war and martial exploits being the ordinary topics of his conversation; however, as he had a sister with whom Amelia was greatly pleased, an intimacy presently grew be'tween us, and we four lived in one family.

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The major was a great dealer in the marvellous, and was constantly the little hero of his own tale. This made him very entertaining to Amelia, who, of all persons in the world, hath 'the truest taste and enjoyment of the ridiculous; 'for whilst no one sooner discovers it in the cha'racter of another, no one so well conceals her knowledge of it from the ridiculous person, I 'cannot help mentioning a sentiment of hers on this head, as I think it doth her great honour. "If I had the same neglect," said she, "for ri"diculous people with the generality of the world, "I should rather think them the objects of tears "than laughter; but, in reality, I have known "several who, in some parts of their characters, "have been extremely ridiculous, in others have "been altogether as amiable. For instance," said

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she, "Here is the major, who tells us of many "things which he has never seen, and of others " which he hath never done, and both in the most

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