gave late in the
season.

There, I met my darling, as I hoped--unaccompanied by her mother, which
I had _not_ imagined would happen; consequently, my chances for speaking
to Min would be all the more favourable.

There was so general a crush of people; that, although the rooms were
large and there were many nice little retreats for tete-a-tete
conversation, in balconies that were covered in like marquees and snug
conservatories, besides the stair landings--those last "refuges for the
destitute" who might desire retirement--I had to put off my purpose
until evening wore on to such a late hour, that I thought I would not be
able to speak to my darling at all!

After midnight, however, my opportunity came.

First getting rid of a horrible person, who would persist in following
Min about under the false pretence that his name was on her card for
several of the after-supper dances--an assertion _I_ knew to be
ridiculously unfounded; for, I had taken care to place my own name down
for as many as Min would give me, and, all the latter ones I had
appropriated also without asking her permission, thinking that when that
happy time arrived, she would not be very hard on me for my presumption;
nor was she.

Extinguishing the interloper--some people have such blindness of mental
vision, that they never can see when they are not wanted!--I managed at
length to open proceedings.

It was while in a quadrille that I began referring to the agonised state
of my mind, and explained the mental suffering I then was experiencing.

Min listened attentively, as far as she heard, a warm flush on her dear
face and a light sparkling in the deep grey eyes; but, I would defy any
lover to plead his cause with due effect in that mazy old cotillon
dance, which a love of French nomenclature in the early part of the
century, taught us to style "quadrille."

How can you inform the object of your passion that you adore her, with
any becoming effusion of sentiment, when you are chassez-ing and
balancez-ing like a human teetotum? How, breathe the words of love;
when, ere you have completed your avowal, you have to make a fool of
yourself in the "Cavalier seul," the cynosure of six different pairs of
eyes besides those of the girl of your heart? How, tone your voice,
sweetly attuned though it may be to Venusian accents, when, one moment,
it may be inaudible to her whom you address, through the rampagious
gallopading and ladies-chaining of excited