"Certainly, most happy," said Longcluse, without any distinct plan as to how he was to execute her awkward commission. "Thank you very much. But, oh! dear, here is Lady Hummington, and she wishes so much to know you; I'll send some one else. I must introduce you, come with me--Lady Hummington, I want to introduce my friend, Mr. Longcluse." So Mr. Longcluse was presented to Lady Hummington, who was very lean, and a "blue," and most fatiguingly well up in archæology, and all new books on dry and difficult subjects. So that Mr. Longcluse felt that he was, in _Joe Willett's_ phrase, "tackled" by a giant, and was driven to hideous exertions of attention and memory to hold his own. When Lady Hummington, to whom it was plain kind Lady May, with an unconscious cruelty, had been describing Mr. Longcluse's accomplishments and acquirements, had taken some tea and other refection, and when Mr. Longcluse's kindness "had her wants supplied," and she, like Scott's "old man" in the "Lay of the Last Minstrel," "was gratified," she proposed visiting the music-room, where she had heard a clever organist play, on a harmonium, three distinct tunes at the same time, which being composed on certain principles, that she explained with much animation and precision, harmonised very prettily. So this clever woman directed, and Mr. Longcluse led, the way to the music-room. CHAPTER XXX. HE SEES HER. Mr. Longcluse's attention was beginning to wander a little, and his eyes were now busy in search of some one whom he had not found; and knowing that the duration of people's stay at a garden-party is always uncertain, and that some of those gaily-plumed birds who make the flutter, and chirping, and brilliancy of the scene, hardly alight before they take wing again, he began to fear that Alice Arden had gone. "Just like my luck!" he thought bitterly; "and if she is gone, when shall I have an opportunity of seeing her again?" Lady Hummington's well-informed conversation had been, unheeded, accompanying the ruminations and distractions of this "passionate pilgrim;" and as they approached the door of the music-room, the little crush there brought the learned lady's lips so near to his ear, that with a little start he heard the words--"All strictly arithmetical, you know, and adjusted by the relative frequency of vibrations. That theory, I am sure, you approve, Mr. Longcluse." To which the distracted lover made answer, "I quite agree with you, Lady Hummington."