faces of those who
passed me the same amused smile which I had before encountered in the
streets. I stood well back out of the thick of the crowd; both because
I could hear the music better, and also to afford any friend of mine who
might chance to be present an opportunity to see me in my imposing new
uniform.

It was whilst I was standing thus in the most easy and nonchalant
attitude I could assume that a horrible discovery forced itself upon me.
I happened to be regarding with a certain amount of languid interest a
couple of promenaders, consisting of a very lovely girl and a somewhat
foppish ensign, when I suddenly caught the eye of the latter fixed upon
me. He raised his eye-glass to his eye, and, in the coolest manner in
the world, deliberately surveyed me through it, when, in an instant, a
broad smile of amusement--the smile which I by this time knew so well--
overspread his otherwise inanimate features. I glanced hurriedly behind
me to see if I could discover the cause of his risibility, and, failing
to do so, turned round again, just in time to see him, with his eye-
glass still bearing straight in my direction, bend his head and speak a
few words to his fair companion. Thereupon she, too, glanced in my
direction, looked steadfastly at me for a moment, and then burst into an
uncontrollable fit of laughter which she vainly strove to stifle in her
pocket-handkerchief. For a second or two I was utterly lost in
astonishment at this unaccountable behaviour, and then all the hideous
truth thrust itself upon me. They were laughing at _me_. Having at
length fully realised this I turned haughtily away and at once left the
ground.

I hurried homeward in a most unenviable state of mind, with the
conviction every moment forcing itself more obtrusively upon me, that
for some inconceivable reason I was the laughing-stock of everybody I
met, when, just as I turned once more into the High Street I observed
two midshipmen approaching on my own side of the way, and some half a
dozen yards or so behind them a certain Miss Smith, a parlour boarder in
the ladies' seminary opposite my father's house--a damsel not more than
six or seven years my senior, with whom I was slightly acquainted, and
for whom I had long cherished a secret but ardent passion.

With that sensitiveness which is so promptly evoked by even the bare
suspicion of ridicule I furtively watched the two "young gentlemen" as
they approached; but they had been