o my peace; how I used to drop the bell-handle, without ringing it,
and go home, then go back again, wander round and round the house, and
at last go bursting into it, like a moth which can't keep away from the
candle which is to burn it to a cinder, verily you would laugh, because
you anticipate my admission that at that time I was deliberately making
myself an ass of the very first water. Nearly every evening when I went
I found a number of people there, and I must say that I never was so
happy as I was on these occasions, and in that house; notwithstanding
that, in the character of my own "daemon" or warning angel, I mentally
gave myself constant digs in the ribs, and cried into my own ears,
"You're a lost man! It's all up with you."

"Every night I went home more hopelessly in love and more intensely
miserable. I soon felt convinced, from Pauline's happy, untroubled
behaviour, that any thing like an unhappy love-affair on her part was
quite out of the question; and frequent allusions of the guests clearly
pointed to the fact that she was engaged, and would soon be married.
There was a great amount of pleasant, jovial fun and merriment about
the whole circle. It was quite a peculiarity of that house; and Asling
himself--a fine, vigorous, jolly fellow, in first-rate health and
well-to-do circumstances--was the leading spirit in all this. Often
there seemed to be schemes of fun and mystification, on an extensive
scale, on the _tapis_, which I, as a comparative outsider, not knowing
the persons and circumstances, wasn't admitted to share in. There was
generally great laughter and amusement going on among the _habitues_
over these affairs. I remember that one time when, after a long
struggle with myself, I had yielded to the temptation and gone in
rather late, I found the old gentleman and Pauline sitting in one of
the windows with a group of young ladies round them. The old gentleman
was reading something out to them; and when he had finished there was a
ringing burst of laughter. To my astonishment he had a big nightcap in
his hand, with an enormous bunch of carnations stuck on to it; this,
after saying a word or two more, he put on his head, and nodded out of
the window with it several times, moving his head up and down, at which
they all burst out laughing again tremendously.'

"'Damnation! damnation!' cried Severin, getting up from his chair, and
walking about.

"'What's the matter with you?' cried the other two a