With a confused sensation of annoyance and ill temper, I opened my eyes at the _reveillé_ next morning, and for some moments experienced that most painful puzzle of which few in this troublesome world of ours are quite ignorant, and which is one of the accompaniments of a great grief, videlicet, a perfect certainty that you are in the middle of something disagreeable, but what you are not sufficiently wide awake to discover. The process of shaving, at all times a reflective one, soon cleared up to me the mystery, and placed in full array the pros. and cons. of my chance of ever meeting my beautiful "incognita" again. Even my decidedly sanguine disposition was compelled to acknowledge that the "pros." were few indeed. Still, as I am not without a certain degree of resolution, especially when the matter to be decided on touches my fancy or my affections, I determined pretty firmly not to relinquish the effort to discover and renew my acquaintance with the belle of last night. I had hardly commenced an attack upon my eggs and broiled ham, when Burton walked in, brimful of curiosity, as I had anticipated, and to avoid the bore of being questioned, I at once opened my budget, and told him the whole history down to my present resolution; the more readily as he was a sufficiently high-minded gentleman-like fellow to talk to about a woman you respected; no blab, and a great chum of mine into the bargain. I regret to say he laughed most unsympathisingly at my dilemma, and acknowledged that he had spent the greater part of the evening watching my proceedings, and speculating as to alternate expressions of triumph and defeat which swept across my countenance. "I never heard of a more curious _rencontre_, the fair unknown must have had a very slight acquaintance with your prototype; and then your unequalled luck sending you to the right quarter for discovering the scene of the original acquaintance, and being sufficiently _au fait_ at its habits and inhabitants, she could never have dreamt of having mistaken you. But how do you think of setting about her recovery?" "Ah! there's the rub. An advertisement in the _Carrington Chronicle_--'If the young lady with the antique fan, &c., who danced the Elfin Waltz with an officer of H.M.'s -- Light Dragoons, at the ball last night, will send her address to the Cavalry Barracks, she will hear of something to her advantage,' would hardly do, eh? Besides, the admiration, however respectful, of a younger son, a landless Captain would not, I fear, come under the denomination of an advantage." "And suppose you discover her, perhaps enshrined in some lordly old manor house, surrounded with all the prestige of position, what will you say for yourself as an excuse, for your bold attempt to see her again?"