Now Mr. Robertson was a man in whose face and figure the most amiable portrait-painter could have found nothing to commend. He was not what is called a fine-looking man, for though sufficiently tall, he was gaunt and ill-proportioned. He was not a handsome man, for every feature was ugly; and his complexion, as well as his hair, was all of one ash-colour; though his eyes were much lighter than his skin. He was fully aware of his deficiency in beauty; but it was some consolation to him that he had been a very pretty baby, as he frequently took occasion to mention. With all this, he was extremely ambitious of marrying a beautiful woman, and resolutely determined that she should "love him for himself alone." Though in the habit of talking ostentatiously of his wealth, yet he sometimes considered this wealth as a sort of thorn in his path to matrimony; for he could not avoid the intrusion of a very uncomfortable surmise, that were he still poor Jack Robinson, he would undoubtedly be "cut dead" by the same ladies who were now assiduously angling for a word or a look from John W. Robertson, Esq. It is true that, being habitually cautious, he proceeded warily, and dispensed his notice to the ladies with much economy, finding that, in the words of charity advertisements, "the smallest donations were thankfully received." Having once read a novel, and it being one in which the heroine blushes all through the book, he concluded that confusion and suffusion were infallible signs of love, and that whenever the bloom on a lady's cheeks deepens at the sight of a gentleman, there can be no doubt of the sincerity and disinterestedness of her regard, and that she certainly loves him for himself alone. Adopting this theory, Mr. Robertson determined not to owe his success to any adventitious circumstances; and he accordingly disdained that attention to his toilet usually observed by gentlemen in the Coelebs line. Therefore, as the season was summer, he walked about all the morning in a long loose gown of broad-striped gingham, buckskin shoes, and an enormous Leghorn hat, the brim turned up behind and down before. In the afternoon, his flying joseph was exchanged for a round jacket of sea-grass: and in the evening he generally appeared in a seersucker coat. But he was invited everywhere. The mothers flattered him, and the daughters smiled on him, yet still he saw no blushes. He looked in vain for the "sweet confusion, rosy terror," which he supposed to be always evinced by a young lady in the presence of the man of her heart. The young ladies that _he_ met with, had all their wits about them; and if on seeing him they covered their faces, it was only to giggle behind their fans. Instead of shrinking modestly back at his approach, they followed him everywhere; and he has more than once been seen perambulating the main street of Somerford at the head of half a dozen young ladies, like a locomotive engine drawing a train of cars.