Baffled on her left hand, Miss Craven turns to her right, to be baffled there also. Not that this right-hand neighbour labours under any excessive _gourmandise_--he is willing, on the contrary, that the unknown, black-eyed innocent and the turtle cutlet should share and share alike in his regards; but ere a quarter of an hour their conversation has come to a shipwreck. In it he takes too much for granted: as, for example, that she has been to London this season; that she has seen Faed's last picture; that she has been at Lady ----'s ball; that, by having seen both, she is in a position to judge of the comparative merits of Mademoiselle Nilsson's and Madame Carvalho's rendering of "Marguerite." Tired at length of saying, "I was not there," "I have not seen it," "I never heard of her," she relapses into a mortified silence; thinking, what an impostor must I be to have thrust myself in among all these fine people--I, who cannot even catch their jargon for five minutes! Foiled in her own little conversational ventures, she tries to listen to other people's. In vain: if, above the general hum, she catches the beginning of one sentence, it is immediately joined on to the end of another. As well, listening to the sultry buzz of a swarm of bees, might one try to distinguish each separate voice. But the dumb show, at least, is left her: the waggling heads, the moving jaws--poor jaws, that have to talk and eat both at once! To put a history to each of these heads--to pick out characters by watching the delicate shades of difference with which each person sits; says, "No, thank you;" laughs--this is not unamusing. Yes, to study the faces, and find similitudes for them: one nut-cracker; several flowers; one plum-pudding; one horse, one vulture, one door-knocker. She is puzzled to find a resemblance for all; for Belinda Denzil, for instance, who, virginally clad in white muslin, that seems to mock her thirty celibate years, is apparently forcing the suave yet weary De Grey into an up-hill, one-sided flirtation. No man has hired Belinda, and it is, with her, the eleventh hour. What fowl, or fish, or quadruped, or article of furniture is she most like? Before Esther can decide this point quite to her mind, the signal of retirement is given, and each maid and wife rises obedient and vanishes. * * * * *