"I have discovered your sin! I knew you must have one tucked about you somewhere.

Wormwood wine! Absinthe! The drink of our depraved French friends! Who would have suspected you of using it ?" "Yes," murmured Frances, glad to be found guilty of the wrong sin.
"Ah, well, we'll have it together here at home," said the king, "so that you need not go abroad for it hereafter." "No, no, I shall never again drink wormwood," protested Frances.

"Betty Pickering tells me it causes vapors in the head, horrid waking dreams, and in the end incurable spasms." "Your resolution is well taken," returned the king.

"We shall seek a harmless substitute." At this point in the conversation his Majesty looked toward me, whispered a word to Frances, and they walked down the garden path to the fountain, while I waited at Bowling Green for Frances's return.

When she came back, she told me in detail all that passed between her and the king.
After they had left me, the king began to talk, and Frances seldom interrupted him save to draw him out, knowing that a talking man sooner or later tells a great deal that he should have left unsaid.