"There is a fellow who seems to have nothing to do to-day," said a young man to his companion, as they were hurrying across the Battery from one end of State-Street to the other. "I should like to hire him as proxy, to show himself in a score or two of houses in my place. I should hand him over half my list at once, if I thought the ladies would submit to the exchange; he looks like a presentable chap, too." "Why, it is actually Harry Hazlehurst! What can he be doing, moping about in that fashion?" "Hazlehurst, is it? Oh, ho!--you have heard the hubbub they have had at the Graham's, I suppose?" "Not I--What is it?" "There was quite a scene there, yesterday; my sister had the news from Adeline Taylor, a great friend of her's; so it comes very straight." "I thought all was going on there as smoothly as possible. I expected an invitation to the wedding before long." "To be sure; so did everybody. But it seems the beauty has ideas of her own. In the first place she refused Hazlehurst, rather to the astonishment of himself and all his friends, I believe." "Refused Hazlehurst!--You don't say so!" "And that is only half the story. She took the same opportunity, while weeping and trembling, to confide to her mamma that her heart had been for some time, how long I cannot tell you precisely, the property of Tall. Taylor." "What, Tallman Taylor? That is news, indeed--I never should have dreamt of such a thing." "Miss Adeline Taylor is the authority. It seems the affair has been going on, no one knows how long, and Miss Taylor has had the management of it. These girls are sly minxes; they are not to be trusted, half of them." "And what says Taylor to all this?" "What does he say? Why he is in a sort of ecstasy of despair, I suppose; for the Grahams won't hear of the match. It was no news to him; they have been engaged, I tell you, for months," At that moment the two young men entered the door of a house in State-Street. Although their story was, upon the whole, correct; yet, we happen to be still better informed on the subject, and shall proceed to account, in our own way, for Hazlehurst's solitary walk.