produced on my feeble understanding. On reflection I discovered that there was not the least ground for surprise, unless I had beforehand believed that nobody could be anybody's cousin without my knowing it. This sort of surprise, I take it, depends on a liveliness of the spine, with a more or less constant nullity of brain. There was a fellow I used to meet at Rome who was in an effervescence of surprise at contact with the simplest information. Tell him what you would—that you were fond of easy boots—he would always say, "No! are you?" with the same energy of wonder: the very fellow of whom pastoral Browne wrote prophetically—
"A wretch so empty that if e'er there be
In nature found the least vacuity
'Twill be in him."
I have accounted for it all—he had a lively spine.
However, this cousinship with the duchess came out by chance one day that Mirah was with them at home and they were talking about the Mallingers. Apropos; I am getting so important that I have rival invitations. Gascoigne wants me to go down with him to his father's rectory in August and see the country round there. But I think self-interest well understood will take me
