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the esteem I bore him." This, continued he "more than recompences the ingratitude of those mercenary wretches, who cannot recollect the features of their friend when shaded by the veil of affected distress."
The conclusion of Belfont's address forcibly struck Lord Bremere, who repeated the words 'affected distress!'--Adding, with much surprise--"Are, then, your misfortunes bred by the tattle of the town."
"No, my lord," returned Belfont; "not from those contemptible beings, who eagerly busy themselves with every body's affairs, while they neglect their own, and who are only industrious in the propagation of scandal; but from myself arose the tale of my distress. I invented it, merely to prove the sincerity of those protestations of eternal friendship, which every day the siren, Flattery, whispered in my ear; and which, to speak the truth, were become most intolerably disgusting. Among my female friends," continued he, "a lady, on whom I looked with partial eyes, and who, in fact, had made some faint impressions on my heart, had the cruelty to smile at my distress: but I thank her for her contempt; it has broken asunder those chains her beauty had forged to hold my heart in bondage."
"And what use does your lordship mean to make of this discovery?" inquired Bremere.
"My resolutions, Charles," returned Belfont, "and your ideas, I will venture to say, are of an opposite nature. You, perhaps, imagine that I shall return to the fashionable world, refute the
