Yet there may perhaps be some who are so hard-hearted as to delight in such torments, and to wish that our young friend might not be so soon and so easily dismissed from his state of trouble and uneasiness. A strange propensity it is in some minds, that they delight in the sufferings and pains of their fellow-creatures! Treatises have been written to account for this propensity, and many ingenious theories formed on the subject: but one theory is quite as good as another; and we are not willing to disturb the minds of those who have formed their own or adopted another's. To pass on from this philosophising, which is more pleasant to the writer than the reader, we will proceed with our narrative. As Markham had neglected much beyond the usual period to pay a visit to Mr. or Miss Henderson, the latter began to think him little better than a gay deceiver; and when mention was made in her hearing concerning the probability of her union with the young gentleman, she no longer gave such confident assent to the report, but spoke doubtingly and hesitatingly. In this she acted wisely and discreetly. For if there was a probability that Markham should disappoint her, it would be highly important that she should hold herself disengaged, that there might be no time lost in providing herself with a successor. Now here we are in need of that arrangement of double columns, of which we made mention at the beginning of this chapter. For on that very day on which Mr. Markham, after a long absence and a great deal of doubting, did call on Mr. Henderson, on that very day Miss Henderson was out. She had not the slightest idea that Markham would call in the evening, but men of business cannot always call in the morning. Markham was very much occupied in the early part of the day. If we had the double-column plan, we might on one side paint the young gentleman's disappointment at not seeing the lady, and on the other depict the young lady at an evening party at the Right Hon. the Earl of Trimmerstone's town mansion; but as it is, we must leave the gentleman to bear his disappointment in solitude, and accompany our friend Miss Henderson to the mansion of nobility.