k the Count
of Ferroll," lisped a third young gentleman.

This completed the programme of mortification, and Endymion, hot and
then cold, and then both at the same time, bereft of repartee, and
wishing the earth would open and Montfort Castle disappear in its
convulsed bosom, stole silently away as soon as practicable, and
wandered as far as possible from the music and the bursts of revelry.

These conversations had taken place in the chief saloon, which was
contiguous to the ball-room, and which was nearly as full of
guests. Endymion, moving in the opposite direction, entered another
drawing-room, where the population was sparse. It consisted of couples
apparently deeply interested in each other. Some faces were radiant,
and some pensive and a little agitated, but they all agreed in one
expression, that they took no interest whatever in the solitary
Endymion. Even their whispered words were hushed as he passed by, and
they seemed, with their stony, unsympathising glance, to look upon him
as upon some inferior being who had intruded into their paradise. In
short, Endymion felt all that embarrassment, mingled with a certain
portion of self contempt, which attends the conviction that we are what
is delicately called _de trop_.

He advanced and took refuge in another room, where there was only
a single, and still more engrossed pair; but this was even more
intolerable to him. Shrinking from a return to the hostile chamber he
had just left, he made a frantic rush forward with affected ease and
alacrity, and found himself alone in the favourite morning room of Lady
Montfort.

He threw himself on a sofa, and hid his face in his hand, and gave a
sigh, which was almost a groan. He was sick at heart; his extremities
were cold, his brain was feeble. All hope, and truly all thought of
the future, deserted him. He remembered only the sorrowful, or the
humiliating, chapters in his life. He wished he had never left Hurstley.
He wished he had been apprenticed to Farmer Thornberry, that he had
never quitted his desk at Somerset House, and never known more of life
than Joe's and the Divan. All was vanity and vexation of spirit. He
contemplated finishing his days in the neighbouring stream, in which,
but a few days ago, he was bathing in health and joy.

Time flew on; he was unconscious of its course; no one entered the room,
and he wished never to see a human face again, when a voice sounded, and
he heard his name.

"Endymion!"