birds who
had taken a critical attitude on a spray above him, apparently began an
animated discussion regarding his possible malevolent intentions. One or
two, emboldened by the silence, hopped on the ground at his feet, until
the sound of wheels on the gravel-walk frightened them away.

Looking up, he saw a man coming slowly toward him, wheeling a
nondescript vehicle, in which a woman was partly sitting, partly
reclining. Without knowing why, Mr. Oakhurst instantly conceived that
the carriage was the invention and workmanship of the man, partly from
its oddity, partly from the strong, mechanical hand that grasped it, and
partly from a certain pride and visible consciousness in the manner
in which the man handled it. Then Mr. Oakhurst saw something more: the
man's face was familiar. With that regal faculty of not forgetting
a face that had ever given him professional audience, he instantly
classified it under the following mental formula: "At 'Frisco, Polka
Saloon. Lost his week's wages. I reckon--seventy dollars--on red. Never
came again." There was, however, no trace of this in the calm eyes and
unmoved face that he turned upon the stranger, who, on the contrary,
blushed, looked embarrassed, hesitated and then stopped with an
involuntary motion that brought the carriage and its fair occupant face
to face with Mr. Oakhurst.

I should hardly do justice to the position she will occupy in this
veracious chronicle by describing the lady now, if, indeed, I am able to
do it at all. Certainly the popular estimate was conflicting. The late
Col. Starbottle--to whose large experience of a charming sex I have
before been indebted for many valuable suggestions--had, I regret to
say, depreciated her fascinations. "A yellow-faced cripple, by dash!
a sick woman, with mahogany eyes; one of your blanked spiritual
creatures--with no flesh on her bones." On the other hand, however, she
enjoyed later much complimentary disparagement from her own sex. Miss
Celestina Howard, second leader in the ballet at the Varieties, had,
with great alliterative directness, in after-years, denominated her
as an "aquiline asp." Mlle. Brimborion remembered that she had always
warned "Mr. Jack" that this woman would "empoison" him. But Mr.
Oakhurst, whose impressions are perhaps the most important, only saw a
pale, thin, deep-eyed woman, raised above the level of her companion
by the refinement of long suffering and isolation, and a certain shy
virginity