; merchants in the Greek and Turkey
trades; a clerical English husband in a meek strait-waistcoat, on a wedding trip
with his young wife; a majestic English mama and papa, of the patrician order,
with a family of three growing-up daughters, who were keeping a journal for the
confusion of their fellow-creatures; and a deaf old English mother tough in
travel, with a very decidedly grown-up daughter indeed, which daughter went
sketching about the universe in the expectation of ultimately toning herself off
into the married state.
    The reserved Englishwoman took up Mr. Meagles in his last remark.
    »Do you mean that a prisoner forgives his prison?« said she, slowly and with
emphasis.
    »That was my speculation, Miss Wade. I don't pretend to know positively how
a prisoner might feel. I never was one before.«
    »Mademoiselle doubts,« said the French gentleman in his own language, »its
being so easy to forgive?«
    »I do.«
    Pet had to translate this passage to Mr. Meagles, who never by any accident
acquired any knowledge whatever of the language of any country into which he
travelled. »Oh!« said he. »Dear me! But that's a pity, isn't it?«
    »That I am not credulous?« said Miss Wade.
    »Not exactly that. Put it another way. That you can't believe it easy to
forgive.«
    »My experience,« she quietly returned, »has been correcting my belief in
many respects, for some years. It is our natural progress, I have heard.«
    »Well, well! But it's not natural to bear malice, I hope?« said Mr. Meagles,
cheerily.
    »If I had been shut up in any place to pine and suffer, I should always hate
that place and wish to burn it down, or raze it to the ground. I know no more.«
    »Strong, sir?« said Mr. Meagles to the Frenchman; it being another of his
habits to address individuals of all nations in idiomatic English, with a
perfect conviction that they were bound to understand it somehow. »Rather
forcible in our fair friend, you'll agree with me, I think?«
    The French gentleman courteously replied, »Plait-il?« To which Mr. Meagles
returned with much satisfaction, »You are right. My opinion.«
    The breakfast beginning by-and-by to languish, Mr. Meagles made the company
a speech. It