ven for it, gained it at last; and, a fine mess I had
made of it, all things considered!

What must she think me?

An ill-bred, untutored, unlicked cub, most probably!

I did not let myself off easily, I promise you. My conscience gave it
to me well, and I could find no satisfactory terms in which I could
express my opinion of my own surly behaviour.

I think if some people only knew the bitter pangs that social culprits
afterwards experience within themselves for their slips and slidings by
the way, they would be less harsh in their judgments and unsparing in
their condemnation than they usually are. Sending him to Coventry is a
poor punishment in comparison with the offender's own remorse. He finds
the "labor et opus redintegrare gradum" hard enough, without that
Rhadamanthus, "society," making the ascent slippery for him!

As I recalled the incidents of the evening, I could not help allowing to
my conscience that Mr Mawley the curate, whom I disliked, had shown
himself a gentleman, where I had only acted like a snob; while Horner, a
man whom I, in my conceit, had looked down upon and affected to despise
as an empty-headed fop and nonentity, was a prince beside me!

They had but played their respective social parts, and accepted the
gifts that the gods provided; while I--dunder-headed dolt that I was--
had conducted myself worse than a budding school-boy who had but just
donned swallow-tails, and made his first entry into society!

Jealousy had been the cause of it all, of course; but, although I have
always held, and will continue to believe, that the presence of that
"green-eyed monster," as the passion is euphuistically termed, is
inseparable from all cases of real, thorough, heart-felt, engrossing
love--still, jealousy is no excuse for ill-manners. "Noblesse oblige"
always. There is no half-way medium; no middle course to take.

Then, fancy my being such a brute as to quarrel with Min, merely because
she could not avoid being courteous to her guests! The fact of their
being personally obnoxious to me, did not affect the scale one way or
the other; she could not help _that_. I doubt whether she even knew it.

I was unable to forgive myself, and wondered if she would excuse my
conduct, and speak to me again; although, I really deserved social
extinction.

But, I surely could not belie her angel nature, I thought? When she
came to know all I had suffered that evening, and the miserable self-
upbrai