Selina's toilet was soon made, and she repaired to the drawing room, long before her aunt was dressed. Here she prepared to renew, at leisure, her entertaining examination; and, for this purpose, leaned on a marble table, to admire the perfection of _bijouterie_, as it was fully exemplified in a French clock that it supported. She had not long remained thus employed, when she was disturbed by a voice close behind her ear, exclaiming, "Beautiful! enchanting! divine, upon my soul!" and turning round, she perceived a gentleman, who, in the mean time, had been as attentively, and, to all appearance, not less delightedly examining her. She colored, but made him a slight curtsy, to which he returned a bow, as obsequious as he could accomplish without withdrawing his eyes from her countenance; whilst his own was intended to express the most reverential admiration: but so little obedient were his features to his feelings, that their expression bordered on the ludicrous, and thereby served as an antidote to his ardent, and almost impertinent gaze. The ceremonious salute was prolonged by both, to enable each to assume a proper, though different, control over their features: but Selina, finding her risible muscles moved almost beyond the power of restraint, turned towards a chair, which her spell-struck admirer presented to her in silence, and with protracted admiration. The figure that thus offered incense at her shrine was one, that would more properly have served as a prototype to a Silenus than a Cupid. He was habited in the very extreme of fashion, apparently unconscious that his ill-proportioned limbs, and corpulent form, "made by nature's journeymen," were but ill adapted to the exhibition of a tailor's art. His head, which was immense, rose out of a filleting of neckcloth, that seemed to impede his respiration; at least such might be inferred from the deepened color of his swoln cheeks. In one hand he held a newspaper, and in the other a glass, which he always applied to his eye when he meant to recognize an acquaintance, always saving and reserving to himself the privilege of "_cutting_" an old friend on the plea of short-sightedness. He had neither the graces of youth, nor the respectability of age; and yet, merely because he had become, nobody knew how or why, the _ton_, he was a welcome inmate of every fashionable mansion. His recommendations, such as they were, consisted in a capability of relating a good story in the best possible manner, and of submitting patiently to a hoax from his superiors, always knowing how and when to return the compliment with interest: besides, "Our courtier walks from dish to dish, Tastes, for his friend, of fowl and fish, Tells all their names, lays down the law, _Que Á‡ est bon! Ah! go˚tez Áa._"