igure as Huxter's at the last page of the tale. Is a life a compromise,
my lady fair, and the end of the battle of love an ignoble surrender?
Is the search for the Cupid which my poor little Psyche pursued in the
darkness--the god of her soul's longing--the god of the blooming cheek
and rainbow pinions,--to result in Huxter smelling of tobacco and
gallypots? I wish, though I don't see it in life, that people could
be like Jenny and Jessamy, or my Lord and Lady Clementina in the
story-books and fashionable novels, and at once under the ceremony, and,
as it were, at the parson's benediction, become perfectly handsome and
good and happy ever after."

"And don't you intend to be good and happy, pray, Monsieur le
Misanthrope--and are you very discontented with your lot--and will your
marriage be a compromise"--(asked the author of 'Mes Larmes,' with a
charming moue)--"and is your Psyche an odious vulgar wretch? You wicked
satirical creature, I can't abide you! You take the hearts of young
things, play with them, and fling them away with scorn. You ask for love
and trample on it. You--you make me cry, that you do, Arthur, and--and
don't--and I won't be consoled in that way--and I think Fanny was quite
right in leaving such a heartless creature."

"Again, I don't say no," said Pen, looking very gloomily at Blanche, and
not offering by any means to repeat the attempt at consolation, which
had elicited that sweet monosyllable "don't" from the young lady. "I
don't think I have much of what people call heart; but I don't profess
it. I made my venture when I was eighteen, and lighted my lamp and
went in search of Cupid. And what was my discovery of love?--a vulgar
dancing-woman! I failed, as everybody does, almost everybody; only it is
luckier to fail before marriage than after."

"Merci du choix, Monsieur," said the Sylphide, making a curtsey.

"Look, my little Blanche," said Pen, taking her hand, and with his voice
of sad good-humour; "at least I stoop to no flatteries."

"Quite the contrary," said Miss Blanche.

"And tell you no foolish lies, as vulgar men do. Why should you and I,
with our experience, ape romance and dissemble passion? I do not believe
Miss Blanche Amory to be peerless among the beautiful, nor the greatest
poetess, nor the most surpassing musician, any more than I believe you
to be the tallest woman in the whole world--like the giantess whose
picture we saw as we rode through the fair yesterday. But if I d