But it is after all a small amount of mischief and of a somewhat mild description compared with that which he inspires in the busy, pushing, energetic man. But in spite of his moral debility and his small sympathy with enthusiasms of any kind, he was much liked by those who knew him. In a quiet way he was observant, and not without humour, which gave a pleasant flavour to his conversation. Moreover he was good-tempered, even to those who bored him, slow to take offence, easily conciliated, never supercilious, generous. “What has come to Merton?” he said. “Confound the fellow! I used to think him so quiet, but now he would talk a donkey's hind-leg off. He's going to the dogs, I think, and I'm sorry I met him.... No, not sorry, since through meeting him I have made the acquaintance of that exquisite girl.... If I know what it is to be in love--and do I not?--I fancy I am beginning to feel the symptoms of that sweet sickness. I could not think of such a face and feel well. I must try to get her photo and have it enlarged; Mills could do a beautiful water-colour portrait from it.... Figure slim, and a most perfect complexion, with a colour delicate as the blush on the petals of some white flower. Nose straight enough and of the right size. It is possible to love, as I happen to know, women with insignificant noses, but impossible not to feel some contempt for them at the same time. Mouth--well, of a girl or woman, not a suckling--not the facial disfigurement called a rose-bud mouth, which has as little attraction for me as the Connemara or even the Zulu mouth. But how describe it, since the poets have not taught me? The painters manage these things better; but even their prince, Rossetti, has nothing on his canvases to compare with this delicate feature. Hair, golden-brown, very bright; for it does not lie like grass, beaten flat and sodden with rain; it is fluffy, loose, crisp, with little stray tresses on forehead, neck, and temples. About her eyes, those windows of the soul, I can only say--nothing. Something in their grey, mysterious depths haunts me like music. I don't know what it is. I have loved many a girl, from the northern with arsenic complexion, china-blue eyes, and canary-coloured hair, to the divine image cut in ebony, as some one piously and prettily says, but I doubt that I have felt quite in this way before. Yet she is not clever, as she says, and is only a poor shop-girl, her surname Affleck--that quaint, plebeian name with its curious associations! I must not forget to ask Merton to tell me her history. I shall certainly see him to-morrow, although perhaps for the last time. Fifty pounds should be enough to pay for the information I require. And that reminds me to ask myself a question--Is it my intention to follow up this adventure? She is a friend of Mrs. Chance, and since I met her at my friend's house, would it be a right thing to do? A nice question, but why bother my brains about it? One can't trust