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Peregrine pretended to be very much concerned at what had happened, and even cursed the driver for his inadvertency, expressing infinite impatience to be at Brussels, and wishing that this misfortune might not detain them another night upon the road; but when his understrapper, according to his instructions, came afterwards to the inn, and gave them to understand that the workman he had employed could not possibly refit the machine in less then six hours, the crafty youth affected to lose all temper, stormed at his emissary, whom he reviled in the most opprobrious terms, and threatened to cane for his misconduct.

His perturbation, the words which escaped him, and his evident struggle to say no more, were proofs just such as she wished to receive of his partial admiration, since while they satisfied her heart, they also soothed her pride, by shewing a diffidence of success which assured her that her own secret was still sacred, and that no weakness or inadvertency on her part had robbed her of the power of mingling dignity with the frankness with which she meant to receive his addresses.

At an audience to which he admitted an envoy, that officer, either wilfully or by accident, addressed him by the name of sovereign; and Ivan, instantly seizing upon the inadvertency, claimed all the privileges of an absolute master.

I conjectured he must be a priest, the priests in Germany being accustomed to dress exactly in the same style as laymen. His countenance was calculated to excite esteem. I regretted that I was not enabled further to cultivate his acquaintance, and I blame myself for my inadvertency in not having taken down his name.

Pray, do not do it; for I should judge myself unpardonable, if I were the cause of so much mischief. Then tell me sincerely, said he, how you came by this wound? I answered, that it came through the inadvertency of a broom-seller upon an ass, who coming behind me, and looking another way, his ass gave me such a push, that I fell down, and hurt my cheek upon some glass.

It is true, sometimes it happened that he was not present, but this was not always the case; and I was convinced that it could not be from accident or inadvertency, that it must be from settled design, that he persisted in this blindness.

A sergeant of battalion of the 9th brigade light infantry, commanded by Barrois, seeing him extended on the ground, asked permission to pick up his cloak. It was found to be perforated behind; and this circumstance leaves it doubtful whether Desaix was killed by some unlucky inadvertency, while advancing at the head of his troops, or by the enemy when turning towards his men to encourage them.

Sometimes its rise is from stupid inadvertency, or heady precipitancy; when the man doth not heed what he saith, or consider the nature and consequence of his words, but snatcheth any expression which cometh next, or which his roving fancy doth offer, for want of that caution of the psalmist, "I said, I will take heed to my ways, that I sin not with my tongue; I will keep my mouth with a bridle, while the wicked is before me."

Germain himself was too much a man of the world to assert anything so monstrous; but he took no pains to contradict the story. In all his conversations with persons of rank and education, he advanced his claims modestly, and as if by mere inadvertency; and seldom pretended to a longevity beyond three hundred years; except when he found he was in company with persons who would believe anything.

Another kind of calumny is, by instilling sly suggestions; which although they do not downrightly assert falsehoods, yet they breed sinister opinions in the hearers; especially in those who, from weakness or credulity, from jealousy or prejudice, from negligence or inadvertency, are prone to entertain them.