"At the Opera! she was going to the Opera!" Robert Streightley found himself vaguely repeating these words as he hurried down Piccadilly. He left the Park so soon as the cavalcade of which Miss Guyon formed part had passed out of sight. Good heavens, how lovely she was! how unlike any thing he had ever seen before! how elegant and graceful! He remembered noticing how closely her dark-blue riding-habit fitted her, and he could see the pretty dogskin gauntlet as she put out her hand to--Ay, who was that she shook hands with? Not the Major; he was the old gentleman. Who was that who asked her if she were going to the Opera and--? What on earth was it to him? he was nothing to Miss Guyon; very probably he should never see her again, and--Yes. He stopped suddenly in his hurried walk. Yes; he would see her again, and that night too. He had never been to the Opera; but any one could go there by paying; and, if he could not speak to her, he should at least be able to gaze upon her lovely face. He was a fool, and was losing his senses. What would they say in the City if they knew of this egregious folly? Here was a man of six-and-thirty running about, like a schoolboy in his calf-love, after a girl whom he had only seen that morning, and had scarcely spoken to! It was very ridiculous, he acknowledged, and he would give it up. He would just call on Mr. Guyon in the way of business in the morning because he had promised to do so, and the affair would be at an end. But he thought he would go to the Opera that night. You see, he had never been there, and had often wanted to know what the place was like.