ctibility know that this dragoon
capable of a blush did this virtuous action, albeit with violent
reluctance; and this was his first damper. A week after these events he
was at a ball. He was in that state of factious discontent which belongs
to us amiable English. He was looking in vain for a lady, equal in
personal attraction to the idea he had formed of George Dolignan as a
man, when suddenly there glided past him a most delightful vision! a lady
whose beauty and symmetry took him by the eyes--another look: "It can't
be! Yes, it is!" Miss Haythorn! (not that he knew her name) but what an
apotheosis!

The duck had become a peahen--radiant, dazzling, she looked twice as
beautiful and almost twice as large as before. He lost sight of her. He
found her again. She was so lovely she made him ill--and he, alone, must
not dance with her, speak to her. If he had been content to begin her
acquaintance the usual way, it might have ended in kissing: it must end in
nothing.

As she danced, sparks of beauty fell from her on all around, but him--she
did not see him; it was clear she never would see him--one gentleman was
particularly assiduous; she smiled on his assiduity; he was ugly, but she
smiled on him. Dolignan was surprised at his success, his ill taste, his
ugliness, his impertinence. Dolignan at last found himself injured; "who
was this man? and what right had he to go on so? He never kissed her, I
suppose," said Dolle. Dolignan could not prove it, but he felt that
somehow the rights of property were invaded.

He went home and dreamed of Miss Haythorn, and hated all the ugly
successful. He spent a fortnight trying to find out who his beauty was--he
never could encounter her again. At last he heard of her in this way: A
lawyer's clerk paid him a little visit and commenced a little action
against him in the name of Miss Haythorn, for insulting her in a railway
train.

The young gentleman was shocked; endeavored to soften the lawyer's clerk;
that machine did not thoroughly comprehend the meaning of the term. The
lady's name, however, was at last revealed by this untoward incident; from
her name to her address was but a short step; and the same day our
crestfallen hero lay in wait at her door, and many a succeeding day,
without effect.

But one fine afternoon she issued forth quite naturally, as if she did it
every day, and walked briskly on the parade. Dolignan did the same, met
and passed her many times on the parade,