'Follow her,' said Raikes, in agitation. 'Do you see her? by yon
long-tailed raven's side? Follow her, Franko! See if he kisses her
hand-anything! and meet me here in half an hour. I'll have evidence!'

Franko did not altogether like the office, but Raikes' dinners, singular
luck, and superiority in the encounter of puns, gave him the upper hand
with his friend, and so Franko went.

Turning away from the last glimpse of his Countess, Raikes crossed the
bridge, and had not strolled far beneath the bare branches of one of the
long green walks, when he perceived a gentleman with two ladies leaning
on him.

'Now, there,' moralized this youth; 'now, what do you say to that? Do
you call that fair? He can't be happy, and it's not in nature for them
to be satisfied. And yet, if I went up and attempted to please them all
by taking one away, the probabilities are that he would knock me down.
Such is life! We won't be made comfortable!'

Nevertheless, he passed them with indifference, for it was merely the
principle he objected to; and, indeed, he was so wrapped in his own
conceptions, that his name had to be called behind him twice before
he recognized Evan Harrington, Mrs. Strike, and Miss Bonner. The
arrangement he had previously thought good, was then spontaneously
adopted. Mrs. Strike reposed her fair hand upon his arm, and Juliana,
with a timid glance of pleasure, walked ahead in Evan's charge. Close
neighbourhood between the couples was not kept. The genius of Mr. Raikes
was wasted in manoeuvres to lead his beautiful companion into places
where he could be seen with her, and envied. It was, perhaps, more
flattering that she should betray a marked disposition to prefer
solitude in his society. But this idea illumined him only near the
moment of parting. Then he saw it; then he groaned in soul, and besought
Evan to have one more promenade, saying, with characteristic cleverness
in the masking of his real thoughts: 'It gives us an appetite, you
know.'

In Evan's face and Juliana's there was not much sign that any
protraction of their walk together would aid this beneficent process of
nature. He took her hand gently, and when he quitted it, it dropped.

'The Rose, the Rose of Beckley Court!' Raikes sang aloud. 'Why, this is
a day of meetings. Behold John Thomas in the rear-a tower of plush and
powder! Shall I rush-shall I pluck her from the aged stem?'

On the gravel-walk above them Rose passed with her aristocratic
gra