g man! Summon your pride, and
fly! Fly, noble youth, for whom storms specially travel to tell you that
your mistress makes faces in the looking-glass! Fly where human lips and
noses are not scornfully distorted, and get thee a new skin, and grow
and attain to thy natural height in a more genial sphere! You, ladies
and gentlemen, who may have had a matter to conceal, and find that it
is oozing out: you, whose skeleton is seen stalking beside you, you know
what it is to be breathed upon: you, too, are skinned alive: but this
miserable youth is not only flayed, he is doomed calmly to contemplate
the hideous image of himself burning on the face of her he loves; making
beauty ghastly. In vain--for he is two hours behind the dinner-bell--Mr.
Burley, the butler, bows and offers him viands and wine. How can he eat,
with the phantom of Rose there, covering her head, shuddering, loathing
him? But he must appear in company: he has a coat, if he has not a skin.
Let him button it, and march boldly. Our comedies are frequently youth's
tragedies. We will smile reservedly as we mark Mr. Evan Harrington step
into the midst of the fair society of the drawing-room. Rose is at the
piano. Near her reclines the Countess de Saldar, fanning the languors
from her cheeks, with a word for the diplomatist on one side, a whisper
for Sir John Loring on the other, and a very quiet pair of eyes for
everybody. Providence, she is sure, is keeping watch to shield her
sensitive cuticle; and she is besides exquisitely happy, albeit
outwardly composed: for, in the room sits his Grace the Duke of
Belfield, newly arrived. He is talking to her sister, Mrs. Strike,
masked by Miss Current. The wife of the Major has come this afternoon,
and Andrew Cogglesby, who brought her, chats with Lady Jocelyn like an
old acquaintance.

Evan shakes the hands of his relatives. Who shall turn over the leaves
of the fair singer's music-book? The young men are in the billiard-room:
Drummond is engaged in converse with a lovely person with Giorgione
hair, which the Countess intensely admires, and asks the diplomatist
whether he can see a soupcon of red in it. The diplomatist's taste is
for dark beauties: the Countess is dark.

Evan must do duty by Rose. And now occurred a phenomenon in him. Instead
of shunning her, as he had rejoiced in doing after the Jocasta scene,
ere she had wounded him, he had a curious desire to compare her with the
phantom that had dispossessed her in his