ot in his soul imagine that Evan was really so little
inquisitive concerning a business of such importance as the trouble that
possessed him. He watched his friend striding off, incredulously, and
then commenced running in pursuit.

'Harrington, I give in; I surrender; you reduce me to prose. Thy nine
have conquered my nine!--pardon me, old fellow. I'm immensely upset. This
is the first day in my life that I ever felt what indigestion is. Egad,
I've got something to derange the best digestion going!

'Look here, Harrington. What happened to you today, I declare I think
nothing of. You owe me your assistance, you do, indeed; for if it hadn't
been for the fearful fascinations of your sister--that divine Countess--I
should have been engaged to somebody by this time, and profited by the
opportunity held out to me, and which is now gone. I 'm disgraced. I 'm
known. And the worst of it is, I must face people. I daren't turn tail.
Did you ever hear of such a dilemma?'

'Ay,' quoth Evan, 'what is it?'

Raikes turned pale. 'Then you haven't heard of it?' 'Not a word.'

'Then it's all for me to tell. I called on Messrs. Grist. I dined at the
Aurora afterwards. Depend upon it, Harrington, we're led by a star. I
mean, fellows with anything in them are. I recognized our Fallow field
host, and thinking to draw him out, I told our mutual histories. Next day
I went to these Messrs. Grist. They proposed the membership for Fallow
field, five hundred a year, and the loan of a curricle, on condition. It
's singular, Harrington; before anybody knew of the condition I didn't
care about it a bit. It seemed to me childish. Who would think of minding
wearing a tin plate? But now!--the sufferings of Orestes--what are they
to mine? He wasn't tied to his Furies. They did hover a little above him;
but as for me, I'm scorched; and I mustn't say where: my mouth is locked;
the social laws which forbid the employment of obsolete words arrest my
exclamations of despair. What do you advise?'

Evan stared a moment at the wretched object, whose dream of meeting a
beneficent old gentleman had brought him to be the sport of a cynical
farceur. He had shivers on his own account, seeing something of himself
magnified, and he loathed the fellow, only to feel more acutely what a
stigma may be.

'It 's a case I can't advise in,' he said, as gently as he could. 'I
should be off the grounds in a hurry.'

'And then I'm where I was before I met the horrid old