2JO ANOTHER CHAPTER ON THE u RIGHTS OF WOMAN." 



tolerable share of talent, and quite sufficient learning to warrant him 

 in aspiring to the employment of tutor, under-librarian, or private se- 

 cretary. He was endowed with some good qualities, and even some 

 virtues. He had moreover defects, and even faults ; but he was with- 

 out vices. He was well-intentioned and romantic, but proud and 

 timid ; that is to say, susceptible and distrustful, like all those who 

 are inexperienced in life and ignorant of the world. In addition to 

 these claims upon our sympathy, the count had the no less im- 

 portant requisites to a hero of romance remarkably fine eyes, a 

 small white Byronic or aristocratic hand, and a profusion of glossy 

 black curls. 



Now, here is a knight-errant quite after your own heart, and in 

 that precise situation in which we have often loved to fancy our- 

 selves ; nay, perhaps, one which we may have actually experienced in 

 our own proper persons but, alas ! whether it be owing to our un- 

 propitious stars, or an ill-selected rout, in these degenerate days, with 

 by no means the good fortune of the count. 



Being overtaken by a train of carriages, a very natural idea 

 occurred to our hero, viz. that riding was much more agreeable than 

 walking, and he forthwith preceded to instal himself behind one 

 of the vehicles. His shadow was soon descried by the practised eye 

 of the postilion, and he was ordered in no very gentle terms to 

 descend. In the unsuspecting confidence of his unsophisticated 

 nature, he addressed his supplications to the occupants of the car- 

 riage; bnt, as they were upper servants, they rejected his request to be 

 allowed to occupy his position behind, with the pride and insolence 

 peculiar to that class. This roused the indignation of St. Julien, and 

 he spoke haughty and high in his turn. 



" The four carriages were proceeding slowly, and without noise, up the 

 aclivity of a sandy hill. The voice of St. Julien, and that of the postilion, 

 who was insulting him, for the amusement of the occupants of the chaise, 

 reached the ear of the lady, who was seated in the foremost berime. She 

 leant out of the window, to ascertain the cause of the disturbance, and 

 St.' Julien beheld, with infantine emotion, the most beautiful female bust, 

 he had ever imagined, but he had no time to admire it ; for, as soon as she 

 fixed her eyes on him, his own were timidly directed towards the ground. 

 The beautiful apparition, addressing herself to the postilion and her servants, 

 in a rough contralto voice, and with a foreign accent, rated them soundly, 

 and called out to the young traveller, in a familiar tone : c Come hither, 

 child, get up on the front seat of my carriage, mind you just leave room 

 enough for my white poodle ; come, be quick, and keep your acknowledg- 

 ments for another time/ " 



St. Julian, of course, was not slow in complying with this com- 

 mand, and his curiosity was soon almost painfully excited by the pe- 

 culiarities of his beautiful benefactress. 



At the relays, she paid not the slightest attention to him, while she 

 chided her lacqueys, one after the other, in a half-angry, half-jovial 

 tone. She was a strange being, such as he had never seen before. She 

 was tall and slender ; her shoulders were broad, and her white and 

 uncovered neck assumed attitudes at once masculine and majestic. 

 Her looks bespoke her to be thirty years of age, and yet it might be 



