where his interests are concerned? On the other hand,
regarded positively, categorically, and explicitly, Dr. Riccabocca, by
laying aside those spectacles, signified that he was about to commence
that happy initiation of courtship, when every man, be he ever so much a
philosopher, wishes to look as young and as handsome as time and nature
will allow. Vain task to speed the soft language of the eyes through the
medium of those glassy interpreters! I remember, for my own part, that
once, on a visit to Adelaide, I was in great danger of falling in
love--with a young lady, too, who would have brought me a very good
fortune--when she suddenly produced from her reticule a very neat pair
of No. 4, set in tortoise-shell, and, fixing upon me their Gorgon gaze,
froze the astonished Cupid into stone! And I hold it a great proof of
the wisdom of Riccabocca, and of his vast experience in mankind, that he
was not above the consideration of what your pseudo sages would have
regarded as foppish and ridiculous trifles. It argued all the better for
that happiness which is our being's end and aim, that, in condescending
to play the lover, he put those unbecoming petrifiers under lock and
key.

And certainly, now the spectacles were abandoned, it was impossible to
deny that the Italian had remarkably handsome eyes. Even through the
spectacles, or lifted a little above them, they were always bright and
expressive; but without those adjuncts, the blaze was softer and more
tempered: they had that look which the French call _veloute_, or
velvety; and he appeared altogether ten years younger. If our Ulysses,
thus rejuvinated by his Minerva, has not fully made up his mind to make
a Penelope of Miss Jemima, all I can say is, that he is worse than
Polyphemus, who was only an Anthropophagos;----

He preys upon the weaker sex, and is a Gynopophagite!

CHAPTER XXIII.

"And you commission me, then, to speak to our dear Jemima?" said Mrs.
Dale, joyfully, and without any bitterness whatever in that "dear."

_Dr. Riccabocca._--"Nay, before speaking to Miss Hazeldean, it would
surely be proper to know how far my addresses would be acceptable to the
family."

_Mrs. Dale._--"Ah!"

_Dr. Riccabocca._--"The Squire is of course the head of the family."

_Mrs. Dale_ (absent and _distrait_.)--"The Squire--yes, very true--quite
proper." (Then looking up, and with _naivete_)--"Can you believe me, I
never thought of the Squire. And he is such an odd man,