quadrillers; and, the next,
be so raised in pitch, from the sudden hush that falls on band and
dancers alike, between the figures, that your opposite vis-a-vis, and
the neighbouring side couples, can hear every syllable of your frantic
declaration--much to their amusement and your discomfiture?

You cannot do it, I say.

No, not if you were a Talleyrand in love matters; and, so completely
versed in the pathology of the "fitful fever," as to be able to diagnose
it at a glance; besides nursing the patient through all the several
stages of the disease--watching every symptom, anticipating each change,
bringing the "case," finally, to a favourable issue!

No, sir, or madam, or mademoiselle, as the case may be; you cannot do
it--not in a quadrille, at all events, or I will;--but, no, I won't
bet:--it is wrong to do so, Min told me!

Presently, on the music stopping, I led her to a seat in a quiet corner.
"Here"--thought I--"I shall be able to have you to myself without fear
of interruption!"

I commenced my tale again; but, Min, evidently, did not wish to come to
any decision now. She wanted to let matters remain as they were.

I could see this readily, by the way in which she tried to put me off,
changing the conversation whenever I got on to the forbidden ground, and
suggesting various irrelevant queries on my endeavouring again to chain
her wilfully-erratic attention down to the one topic that I only thought
worthy of interest.

The feminine mind, I believe, delights in uncertainty.

Girls are not half so anxious to have their lovers "declare themselves,"
as some ill-natured people would have us think. They much prefer
holding on in delightful doubt--that pleasant "he-would-and-she-
wouldn't" pastime that precedes a regular engagement or undoubted
dismissal--just as a playful mouser sports with its victim, long after
the trembling little beast has lost its small portion of life;
pretending that it is yet alive and essaying to escape, when pussy knows
right well that poor mousey's fate is sealed, as far as any further
struggles on its part are concerned.

A man, on the contrary, abhors suspense.

It is not business-like, you know.

He much desiderates a plain answer to a plain exposition of fact or
fancy--even when it takes the form of that excruciating little
monosyllable "no."

Those diminutive arts and petty trickeries of feigned resistance, with
which our "angels without wings" strive to delay the surr