Un ouvrage d'imagination ne doit pas avoir un bût moral, mais un résultat
moral. Il doit ressembler, à cet égard, à la vie humaine, qui n'a pas un bût,
mais qui toujours a un résultat dans lequel la morale trouve nécessairement
sa place.
BENJAMIN CONSTANT.

DACRE.

PROPERTY

THE

YORK

SOCIETY LIBRAR

CHAPTER I.

The company is "mix'd" (the phrase I quote is
As much as saying, they're beneath your notice.)

BYRON,

"I WONDER at what time we may expect Mr. Dacre," exclaimed Mrs. Plummer, as she folded up her work, and drew her chair towards the fire, in order to give herself up wholly to the pleasures of what she called " a comfortable bit of talk :" but every body was so accustomed to hear Mrs. Plummer wonder about all coming events, that none listened to her speculations, unless compelled by repetition to give her some token that she was not a visitor to the Deaf and Dumb Asylum. "I suppose you young ladies often met Mr. Dacre in London last spring," continued she, addressing two sisters who were seated on an opposite sofa-the one embroidering a skreen for any refugees that might next season require a bazaar; the other, with equal diligence, copying the Mazurka that had been confided to her by Lady E. D., and on no account to be given to any body else, having been allowed only to catch it by ear from Lady C. B.

Mrs. Plummer still got no answer. She was an acknowledged "bore," and therefore not to be encouraged. Moreover, she was a country bore: and though it might be very well for the Molesworths to receive her because she was a relation (and not a poor one), there could be no occasion for the guests at Thornbury Park either to listen or to talk to her. So thought the Misses Ashby; and ac