"Do come and dine with us on Monday," said my friend Mrs. F.; "there will be a very charming girl here, whom you would like to see." "Positively?" "_Sans faute!_" "Then keep a place for me; I'll come." I went. It was a formal dinner-party. In the drawing-room, before going to table, Mrs. F. came across to me. "Now I'll introduce you to our belle of the evening. You may escort her down to dinner. There she is, half-hidden behind that drapery. You can't have noticed her." "Miss Verner, let me present Mr. Cuthbert." I should have recognized Mary Verner, as she looked up, with those widely-opening brown eyes of hers, if her name had not been mentioned. As it was, it was quite natural for me to remark that I believed I had had the pleasure of seeing Miss Verner before. And so in a few moments we were gossipping cosily about "old times," as we, not very old people, called them. The beautiful child had expanded into a very lovely woman, preserving still the same characteristics of person and expression. The charm of her voice was the same. You may be sure that when seated by her side, with the becoming glow of lamp-light overhead heightening, if possible, those attractions which I rather hint than attempt to describe--you may be sure, I say, that I found her very captivating. We talked of her brother George; of the pleasant house wherein I first met her, and which was still her home; of her amiable and lady-like mother who was still living; of the old pony now gathered to his sires; of the old chestnut-trees even--in short, of all those unimportant associations, out of which, under such circumstances, one endeavours to establish a trivial and flitting but very pleasant little bond of sympathy. I declare I was half ready to fall head over ears in love with her. And she took it all with a simple unaffected grace, that seemed to be her very nature. But we did not have all the talk to ourselves. I had not the presumption to engross her entirely. Nor would it have been possible. She was--there is no need to go over it all again--she was Mary Verner. Nearly opposite to us at table sat a Mr. Easton, a young barrister--young, that is professionally, for he was apparently a man of thirty or thereabouts. He would not have been singled out as a lady-killer, for he was none of your regular Adonises, such as hang by dozens, in portraiture, upon the walls of our Royal Academy Exhibitions, and lounge complacently in our Fop's Alley at the Opera. When, however, the excitement of conversation--in which he took an active and most intelligent part--developed the fine play of his features, you would have pronounced him a man who added, to a cultivated and superior mind, a look that bespoke such gift. In fact there was a manly air about him, that claimed respect, if it did not challenge attention.