A simple note, with a very slight touch of very mild badinage. But Charles Yeldham was unaccustomed to the receipt of letters from ladies, and this one certainly had a singular effect on him. What a pretty hand she wrote! how refreshing were the thin, slight, angular strokes after the rounded fists of the attorneys' clerks! how the dainty paper and brilliant monogram contrasted with the blue-wove and the wafer-stamp seal of his ordinary correspondence! And then, as he puffed at his pipe, and watched the blue vapour curling up around his head, Charley remembered the first, almost the only time he had ever seen her in that soft diaphanous dress at the Botanical Fête, where, even before he knew who she was, he had been sensible of her presence, and where he had felt himself completely subjugated by her loveliness, her elegance, and grace. They would laugh at him, Frere and some fellows of his acquaintance, as a stoic and a cynic,--not that he was one or the other,--but, after all, was it not better to go through life unvexed and untroubled by thoughts of lovely women, who were as far removed from you as the stars, than to endeavour to win them, and find yourself cast down from star-height as the reward of your presumption? It was a dull life his, no doubt; with nothing to cheer it but the success of his work, and--good God! how beautiful she was! (here he took the photograph out); what perfect grace in the pose of her head, in the resting of her hands, in the long sweeping folds of her dress! Ah, if little Constance ever grew up to be any thing like that, there would be less need of the dower which her brother was so carefully putting by for her! No wonder Gordon Frere, young, impressible, buoyant, and hopeful, was desperately in love with such a beauty; no wonder that, looking at her, Robert Streightley forgot his ventures, his shares, his cautious dealings, and his longheaded speculations, and rushed into the matrimonial market, determined, at whatever cost, to carry off the prize. How had Robert Streightley accomplished this result? The desire of being successful was intelligible; but how was the success arrived at? As Yeldham pondered over his question, during his midday interval of rest, and while smoking his midday pipe, there came a knock at the oak; and opening it, Yeldham admitted the man of all others most likely to be able to answer him--Robert Streightley himself. He came in wincing a little at the clouds of strong Cavendish which filled the barrister's room, and seated himself in the attorneys' chair. He looked pale and a little careworn, but he greeted Yeldham certainly as heartily as usual, and smiled as he said, "For once in his life!--bravo! for once in his life, I've found the machine without the steam up, and Charley Yeldham _not_ at his desk!" "Sir," replied Charley, "you come at a peculiar time; these are the five minutes of relaxation; so let us relax together! Robert, my boy, you're looking very seedy, white and peaky!"