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THE SEMI-DETACHED HOUSE.

evident that money was no object to the Baron, and as he averred, gave him little enjoyment. The Baroness, he said, had a feminine taste for Sèvres China or it might be Dresden, he did not know one from the other, but she pleased herself in those trifling concerns. He owned he thought that plate kept the dinner hotter, and when his friends were kind enough to come and see him, he should be sorry if they found their dinner half cold and not fit to eat. He felt it a duty, with his means, to encourage the manufactures of the country (Sèvres and Dresden!), but for himself, a mutton chop on a common white plate was all he asked.

The Baroness was in the highest spirits, loudly regretting that the Duchess of St. Maur should have carried off so many of her guests, but that circumstance had apparently left her a larger amount of condescension to divide amongst the remainder. Miss Monteneros seemed to be suffering either from a cold or the persevering attentions of Baron Moses, and was more than usually distraite