Life of Count Rumford. 325 



apartments of his daughter with lowering looks, and 

 even more incensed than he had been at the secrecy with 

 which she had planned the birthday banquet. 



" I feeling myself innocent, as I was (it being as much a 

 surprise to me as to my father that the invitation to the dinner 

 was to meet Count Taxis, that being the subject of the diffi- 

 culty), I at first only stared. After which, on knowing what it 

 meant, like many young people who laugh when there is noth- 

 ing to laugh at, an irresistible inclination seized me to laugh ; 

 which I having for some time suppressed only burst forth with 

 the greater violence, and it ended in my father's boxing my 

 ears. Little expecting such an indignity, I quitted the room 

 without making an observation, or trying to appease him by 

 saying I was innocent. Nor did he ever know, as I believe, 

 but what I had given rendezvous to Count Taxis, and met him 

 from a spirit of intrigue. Much the contrary, the Countess 

 knowing very well I should not have gone, had I known for 

 what purpose. Besides, she was too just and delicate to place 

 me in such a situation." 



We must infer, therefore, that Count Taxis came in 

 by chance to the dinner. Our sympathies are engaged 

 for the girl in the following like episode. 



" I must be allowed here to take a step of retrogression. 

 When I was a little girl of four or five years old, I had two 

 playmates about my own age, by name William and Elenora 

 Green ; and we were very fond of each other. We were sent 

 to day-schools together in the neighborhood, and were so much 

 together that we were called the inseparables. We grew up in 

 this manner in real love and friendship. We knew no differ- 

 ence from brother and sisters, excepting I might have been a 

 little more civil than the sister. For William was exceedingly 

 pretty and engaging, and his mother, doatingly fond of him, led 

 him to exact more from us than he otherwise might have done. 



O 



Mrs. Green, the mother, was rather romantic in her character^ 

 and dressed her son fantastically, keeping his hair (beautiful 



