imself agreeable, but was
always left with the impression that he had not been successful. The
young ladies of Mrs Cowey's set were by no means the most attractive that
might have been found in the University, and Theobald may be excused for
not losing his heart to the greater number of them, while if for a minute
or two he was thrown in with one of the prettier and more agreeable girls
he was almost immediately cut out by someone less bashful than himself,
and sneaked off, feeling as far as the fair sex was concerned, like the
impotent man at the pool of Bethesda.

What a really nice girl might have done with him I cannot tell, but fate
had thrown none such in his way except his youngest sister Alethea, whom
he might perhaps have liked if she had not been his sister. The result
of his experience was that women had never done him any good and he was
not accustomed to associate them with any pleasure; if there was a part
of Hamlet in connection with them it had been so completely cut out in
the edition of the play in which he was required to act that he had come
to disbelieve in its existence. As for kissing, he had never kissed a
woman in his life except his sister--and my own sisters when we were all
small children together. Over and above these kisses, he had until quite
lately been required to imprint a solemn flabby kiss night and morning
upon his father's cheek, and this, to the best of my belief, was the
extent of Theobald's knowledge in the matter of kissing, at the time of
which I am now writing. The result of the foregoing was that he had come
to dislike women, as mysterious beings whose ways were not as his ways,
nor their thoughts as his thoughts.

With these antecedents Theobald naturally felt rather bashful on finding
himself the admired of five strange young ladies. I remember when I was
a boy myself I was once asked to take tea at a girls' school where one of
my sisters was boarding. I was then about twelve years old. Everything
went off well during tea-time, for the Lady Principal of the
establishment was present. But there came a time when she went away and
I was left alone with the girls. The moment the mistress's back was
turned the head girl, who was about my own age, came up, pointed her
finger at me, made a face and said solemnly, "A na-a-sty bo-o-y!" All
the girls followed her in rotation making the same gesture and the same
reproach upon my being a boy. It gave me a great scare. I be