lessly, and, to his reply as to
the direction, said: "Then I can give you a lift," and she took his arm
with a matter-of-course air, and walked up the stairs with him.

Ripton saw what had happened. He was going to follow: the portly dame
retained him, and desired him to get her a cab.

"Oh, you happy fellow!" said the bright-eyed mignonne, passing by.

Ripton procured the cab, and stuffed it full without having to get into
it himself.

"Try and let him come in too?" said the persecuting creature, again
passing.

"Take liberties with pour men--you shan't with me," retorted the angry
bosom, and drove off.

"So she's been and gone and run away and left him after all his
trouble!" cried the pert little thing, peering into Ripton's eyes. "Now
you'll never be so foolish as to pin your faith to fat women again.
There! he shall be made happy another time." She gave his nose a comical
tap, and tripped away with her possessor.

Ripton rather forgot his friend for some minutes: Random thoughts laid
hold of him. Cabs and carriages rattled past. He was sure he had been
among members of the nobility that day, though when they went by him
now they only recognized him with an effort of the eyelids. He began
to think of the day with exultation, as an event. Recollections of the
mignonne were captivating. "Blue eyes--just what I like! And such a
little impudent nose, and red lips, pouting--the very thing I like! And
her hair? darkish, I think--say brown. And so saucy, and light on her
feet. And kind she is, or she wouldn't have talked to me like that."
Thus, with a groaning soul, he pictured her. His reason voluntarily
consigned her to the aristocracy as a natural appanage: but he did
amorously wish that Fortune had made a lord of him.

Then his mind reverted to Mrs. Mount, and the strange bits of the
conversation he had heard on the hill. He was not one to suspect anybody
positively. He was timid of fixing a suspicion. It hovered indefinitely,
and clouded people, without stirring him to any resolve. Still the
attentions of the lady toward Richard were queer. He endeavoured to
imagine they were in the nature of things, because Richard was so
handsome that any woman must take to him. "But he's married," said
Ripton, "and he mustn't go near these people if he's married." Not a
high morality, perhaps better than none at all: better for the world
were it practised more. He thought of Richard along with that sparkling
dame, alone w