irst field I
came to, and shed tears of such shame, disappointment, and wounded
pride, as my eyes had never known before. She had called me a little
boy, and my letter a heap of nonsense! She was elderly--she was
ignorant--she was married! I had been a fool; but that knowledge came
too late, and was not consolatory.

By-and-by, while I was yet sobbing and disconsolate, I heard the
drumming and fifing which heralded the appearance of the _Corps
Dramatique_ on the outer platform. I resolved to see her for the last
time. I pulled my hat over my eyes, went back to the Green, and mingled
with the crowd outside the booth. It was growing dusk. I made my way to
the foot of the ladder, and observed her narrowly. I saw that her ankles
were thick, and her elbows red. The illusion was all over. The spangles
had lost their lustre, and the poppies their glow. I no longer hated the
harlequin, or envied the clown, or felt anything but mortification at my
own folly.

"Miss Angelina Lascelles, indeed!" I said to myself, as I sauntered
moodily home. "Pshaw! I shouldn't wonder if her name was Snooks!"

CHAPTER II.

THE LITTLE CHEVALIER.

A mere anatomy, a mountebank,
A threadbare juggler.

_Comedy of Errors_.

Nay, then, he is a conjuror.

_Henry VI_.

My adventure with Miss Lascelles did me good service, and cured me for
some time, at least, of my leaning towards the tender passion. I
consequently devoted myself more closely than ever to my
studies--indulged in a passing mania for genealogy and heraldry--began a
collection of local geological specimens, all of which I threw away at
the end of the first fortnight--and took to rearing rabbits in an old
tumble-down summer-house at the end of the garden. I believe that from
somewhere about this time I may also date the commencement of a great
epic poem in blank verse, and Heaven knows how many cantos, which was to
be called the Columbiad. It began, I remember, with a description of the
Court of Ferdinand and Isabella, and the departure of Columbus, and was
intended to celebrate the discovery, colonization, and subsequent
history of America. I never got beyond ten or a dozen pages of the first
canto, however, and that Transatlantic epic remains unfinished to
this day.

The great event which I have recorded in the preceding chapter took
place in the early summer. It must, therefore, have been towards the
close of autumn in the same year when my next i