l never conduce, save to very little
ones!"

With this reflection Jekyl arose to begin his toilet, an occupation
which, less from dandyism than pure self-love, he usually prolonged
during the whole morning. It was to him a period of self-examination.
He seemed, to use a mercantile figure, to be taking stock of his own
capabilities, and investigating his own means of future success.

It was an "open day," that is, he knew not where he should dine; so that
his costume, while partaking of all the characteristics of the morning,
had yet combined certain little decorative traits that would not be
unsuitable if pressed to accept an unpremeditated hospitality.

There were very few, indeed, with whom Jekyl would have condescended
so to dine, not only from the want of dignity incurred, but that on
principle he would have preferred the humblest fare at home to the
vulgarity of a pot-luck dinner, which invariably, as he said himself,
deranged your digestion, and led to wrong intimacies.

His dress being completed, he looked out along the crowd to see in whose
carriage he was to have a seat to the Cascini. More than one inviting
gesture motioned him to a place, as equipage after equipage passed on;
but although some of those who sought him were high in rank, and others
distinguished for beauty and attraction, Jekyl declined the courtesies
with that little wave of the hand so significative in all Italian
intercourse. Occasionally, indeed, a bland, regretful smile seemed to
convey the sorrow the refusal cost him; and once he actually placed his
hand over where his heart might be, as though to express a perfect pang
of suffering; but still he bided his time.

At last a very dark visage, surrounded by a whisker of blackest hair,
peeped from beneath the head of a very shabby caleche, whose horse and
coachman were all of the "seediest;" and Jekyl cried out, "Morlache!"
while he made a sign towards the Cascini. The other replied by spreading
out his hand horizontally from his mouth, and blowing along the surface,
a pantomime meant to express a railroad. Jekyl immediately descended and
took his place beside him.

CHAPTER XXI. A FAMILY PICTURE

THE fashionable life of a great city has a character of sameness
which defies all attempts at portraiture. Well-bred people, and their
amusements, are all constructed so perfectly alike, certain family
traits pervading them throughout, that every effort at individualization
is certain t