The O'Kelly replied feelingly to the effect that Nelson Square, Blackfriars, would ever remain engraved upon his memory as the fairest and brightest spot on earth. Personally, nothing would have given him greater pleasure than to die among the dear friends who now surrounded him. But there was such a thing as duty, and he and the Signora had come to the conclusion that true happiness could only be obtained by acting according to one's conscience, even if it made one miserable. Jarman, warming to his work, then proposed the health of Mrs. Peedles, as true-hearted and hard-breathing a lady as ever it had been his privilege to know. Her talent for cheery conversation was familiar to us all, upon it he need not enlarge; all he would say was that personally never did she go out of his room without leaving him more cheerful than when she entered it. After that--I forget in what--we drank the health of the Lady 'Ortensia. Persons there were--Jarman would not attempt to disguise the fact--who complained that the Lady 'Ortensia was too distant, “too stand-offish.” With such complaint he himself had no sympathy; but tastes differed. If the Lady 'Ortensia were inclined to be exclusive, who should blame her? Everybody knew their own business best. For use in a second floor front he could not honestly recommend the Lady 'Ortensia; it would not be giving her a fair chance, and it would not be giving the second floor a fair chance. But for any gentleman fitting up marble halls, for any one on the lookout for a really “toney article,” Jarman would say: Inquire for Miss Rosina Sellars, and see that you get her. There followed my turn. There had been literary chaps in the past, Jarman admitted so much. Against them he had nothing to say. They had no doubt done their best. But the gentleman whose health Jarman wished the company now to drink had this advantage over them: that they were dead, and he wasn't. Some of this gentleman's work Jarman had read--in manuscript; but that was a distinction purely temporary. He, Jarman, claimed to be no judge of literature, but this he could and would say, it took a good deal to make him miserable, yet this the literary efforts of Mr. Kelver invariably accomplished. Mrs. Peedles, speaking without rising, from personal observation in the daytime--which she hoped would not be deemed a liberty; literature, even in manuscript, being, so to speak, public property--found herself in a position to confirm all that Mr. Jarman had remarked. Speaking as one not entirely without authority on the subject of literature and the drama, Mrs. Peedles could say that passages she had read had struck her as distinctly not half bad. Some of the love-scenes, in particular, had made her to feel quite a girl again. How he had acquired such knowledge was not for her to say. Cries of “Naughty!” from Jarman, and “Oh, Mr. Kelver, I shall be quite afraid of you,” roguishly from Miss Sellars.