IV.

I remember one morning, when a boy, loitering by an old wall to watch
the operations of a garden spider whose web seemed to be in great
request. When I first stopped, she was engaged very quietly with a fly
of the domestic species, whom she managed with ease and dignity. But
just when she was most interested in that absorbing employment came a
couple of May-flies, and then a gnat, and then a blue-bottle,--all at
different angles of the web. Never was a poor spider so distracted
by her good fortune! She evidently did not know which godsend to take
first. The aboriginal victim being released, she slid half-way
towards the May-flies; then one of her eight eyes caught sight of the
blue-bottle, and she shot off in that direction,--when the hum of the
gnat again diverted her; and in the middle of this perplexity, pounce
came a young wasp in a violent passion! Then the spider evidently lost
her presence of mind; she became clean demented; and after standing,
stupid and stock-still, in the middle of her meshes for a minute or two,
she ran off to her hole as fast as she could run, and left her guests to
shift for themselves. I confess that I am somewhat in the dilemma of
the attractive and amiable insect I have just described. I got on well
enough while I had only my domestic fly to see after. But now that there
is something fluttering at every end of my net (and especially since the
advent of that passionate young wasp, who is fuming and buzzing in the
nearest corner), I am fairly at a loss which I should first grapple
with; and alas! unlike the spider, I have no hole where I can hide
myself, and let the web do the weaver's work. But I will imitate the
spider as far as I can; and while the rest hum and struggle away their
impatient, unnoticed hour, I will retreat into the inner labyrinth of my
own life.

The illness of my uncle and my renewed acquaintance with Vivian had
naturally sufficed to draw my thoughts from the rash and unpropitious
love I had conceived for Fanny Trevanion. During the absence of the
family from London (and they stayed some time longer than had been
expected), I had leisure, however, to recall my father's touching
history, and the moral it had so obviously preached to me; and I formed
so many good resolutions that it was with an untrembling hand that I
welcomed Miss Trevanion at last to London, and with a firm heart that I
avoided, as much as possible, the fatal charm of her society. The slow
conva