e her to say more even to you."

COLONEL MORLEY.--"And if that be not the doubt, and if I ascertain that
Darrell has no idea of proposing, Honoria would--"

LADY SELINA.--"Despise him. Ah, I see by your countenance that you think
I should prepare her. Is it so, frankly?"

COLONEL MORLEY.--"Frankly, then. I think Guy Darrell, like many other
men, has been so long in making up his mind to marry again that he has
lost the right moment, and will never find it."

Lady Selina smells at her vinaigrette, and replies in her softest,
affectedest, civilest, and crushingest manner: "POOR--DEAR--OLD MAN!"

CHAPTER XIX.

MAN IS NOT PERMITTED, WITH ULTIMATE IMPUNITY, TO EXASPERATE THE
ENVIES AND INSULT THE MISERIES OF THOSE AROUND HIM, BY A SYSTEMATIC
PERSEVERANCE IN WILFUL-CELIBACY. IN VAIN MAY HE SCHEME, IN THE
MARRIAGE OF INJURED FRIENDS, TO PROVIDE ARM-CHAIRS, AND FOOT-STOOLS,
AND PRATTLING BABIES FOR THE LUXURIOUS DELECTATION OF HIS INDOLENT
AGE. THE AVENGING EUMENIDES (BEING THEMSELVES ANCIENT VIRGINS
NEGLECTED) SHALL HUMBLE HIS INSOLENCE, BAFFLE HIS PROJECTS, AND
CONDEMN HIS DECLINING YEARS TO THE HORRORS OF SOLITUDE,--RARELY EVEN
WAKENING HIS SOUL TO THE GRACE OF REPENTANCE.

The Colonel, before returning home, dropped into the Clubs, and
took care to give to Darrell's sudden disappearance a plausible and
commonplace construction. The season was just over. Darrell had gone to
the country. The town establishment was broken up, because the house
in Carlton Gardens was to be sold. Darrell did not like the
situation--found the air relaxing--Park Lane or Grosvenor Square were
on higher ground. Besides, the staircase was bad for a house of such
pretensions--not suited to large parties. Next season Darrell might be
in a position when he would have to give large parties, &c., &c. As no
one is inclined to suppose that a man will retire from public life just
when he has a chance of office, so the Clubs took Alban Morley's remarks
unsuspiciously, and generally agreed that Darrell showed great tact in
absenting himself from town during the transition state of politics that
always precedes a CRISIS, and that it was quite clear that he calculated
on playing a great part when the CRISIS was over, by finding his house
had grown too small for him. Thus paving the way to Darrell's easy
return to the world, should he repent of his retreat (a chance which
Alban by no means dismissed from his reckoning), the