e to the Ladies Prymme, received an icy epigram from Lady Frost,
and a laconic sneer from Mr. Crampe, and exchanged silent bows with
seven silent Slowes. He has wandered on, looking high in the air, but
still looking for some one not in the air, and evidently disappointed in
his search, comes to a full stop at length, takes off his hat, wipes
his brow, utters a petulant "Prr--r--pshaw!" and seeing, a little in
the background, the chairless shade of a thin, emaciated, dusty tree,
thither he retires, and seats himself with as little care whether there
to seat himself be the right thing in the right place, as if in the
honeysuckle arbour of a village inn. "It serves me right," said he to
himself: "a precocious villain bursts in upon me, breaks my day, makes
an appointment to meet me here, in these very walks, ten minutes before
six; decoys me with the promise of a dinner at Putney,--room looking on
the river and fried flounders. I have the credulity to yield: I derange
my habits; I leave my cool studio; I put off my easy blouse; I imprison
my freeborn throat in a cravat invented by the Thugs; the dog-days
are at hand, and I walk rashly over scorching pavements in a black
frock-coat and a brimless hat; I annihilate 3s. 6d. in a pair of kid
gloves; I arrive at this haunt of spleen; I run the gauntlet of Frosts,
Slowes, and Prymmes: and my traitor fails me! Half-past six,--not a sign
of him! and the dinner at Putney,--fried flounders? Dreams! Patience,
five minutes more; if then he comes not, breach for life between him and
me! Ah, voila! there he comes, the laggard! But how those fine folks are
catching at him! Has he asked them also to dinner at Putney, and do they
care for fried flounders?"

The soliloquist's eye is on a young man, much younger than himself, who
is threading the motley crowd with a light quick step, but is compelled
to stop at each moment to interchange a word of welcome, a shake of the
hand. Evidently he has already a large acquaintance; evidently he is
popular, on good terms with the world and himself. What free grace
in his bearing! what gay good-humour in his smile! Powers above! Lady
Wilhelmina surely blushes as she returns his bow. He has passed Lady
Frost unblighted; the Slowes evince emotion, at least the female Slowes,
as he shoots by them with that sliding bow. He looks from side to side,
with the rapid glance of an eye in which light seems all dance and
sparkle: he sees the soliloquist under the