me thing.'

'O, we shall find out presently, I suppose. I daresay my wife knows.'
They had parted, when a hand came upon his shoulder. Lord Channelcliffe
had turned back for an instant: 'I find she is the granddaughter of my
father's old friend, the last Lord Hengistbury. Her name is Mrs.--Mrs.
Pine-Avon; she lost her husband two or three years ago, very shortly
after their marriage.'

Lord Channelcliffe became absorbed into some adjoining dignitary of the
Church, and Pierston was left to pursue his quest alone. A young friend
of his--the Lady Mabella Buttermead, who appeared in a cloud of muslin
and was going on to a ball--had been brought against him by the tide.
A warm-hearted, emotional girl was Lady Mabella, who laughed at the
humorousness of being alive. She asked him whither he was bent, and he
told her.

'O yes, I know her very well!' said Lady Mabella eagerly. 'She told
me one day that she particularly wished to meet you. Poor thing--so
sad--she lost her husband. Well, it was a long time ago now, certainly.
Women ought not to marry and lay themselves open to such catastrophes,
ought they, Mr. Pierston? _I_ never shall. I am determined never to run
such a risk! Now, do you think I shall?'

'Marry? O no; never,' said Pierston drily.

'That's very satisfying.' But Mabella was scarcely comfortable under his
answer, even though jestingly returned, and she added: 'But sometimes I
think I may, just for the fun of it. Now we'll steer across to her, and
catch her, and I'll introduce you. But we shall never get to her at this
rate!'

'Never, unless we adopt "the ugly rush," like the citizens who follow
the Lord Mayor's Show.'

They talked, and inched towards the desired one, who, as she discoursed
with a neighbour, seemed to be of those--

'Female forms, whose gestures beam with mind,'

seen by the poet in his Vision of the Golden City of Islam.

Their progress was continually checked. Pierston was as he had sometimes
seemed to be in a dream, unable to advance towards the object of pursuit
unless he could have gathered up his feet into the air. After ten
minutes given to a preoccupied regard of shoulder-blades, back hair,
glittering headgear, neck-napes, moles, hairpins, pearl-powder, pimples,
minerals cut into facets of many-coloured rays, necklace-clasps, fans,
stays, the seven styles of elbow and arm, the thirteen varieties of
ear; and by using the toes of his dress-boots as coulters with which
he pl