Sir Charles Mitford was of this class. He would have been horrified if any one had suggested that he had any intention of wronging his wife; would have said that such an idea had never crossed his mind--and truthfully, as whenever it rose he immediately smothered it; would have declared, as he believed, that Georgie was the prettiest, the best, and the dearest girl in the world. But he was a man of strong passions, and most susceptible to flattery; and ever since Mrs. Hammond had seemed to select him for special notice, more especially since she had assumed the habit of occasionally looking pensively at him, with a kind of dreamy languor in her large eyes, he had thought more of her, in both senses of the phrase, than was right. He was thinking of her even then, as he sat square and erect in his phaeton, before he passed out of Georgie's gaze; thinking of her large eyes and their long glances, her full rounded figure, a peculiar hand-clasp which she gave, a thrill without a grip, a scarcely perceptible unforgettable pressure. Then his horsey instincts rose within him, and he began to take coachman's notice of the chestnuts; saw the merits and demerits of each, and almost unconsciously set about the work of educating the former, and checking the latter; and thus he employed himself until the white houses of Torquay came within sight, and glancing at his watch he found he should have done his twenty miles in an hour and forty minutes. Mrs. Hammond had told him that he would be sure of finding their address at the Royal Hotel; so to the Royal Hotel he drove. The chestnuts went bounding through the town, attracting attention from all the valetudinarians then creeping about on their shopping or anteprandial walks. These poor fellows in respirators and high shawls, bending feebly on sticks or tottering on each other's arms, resented the sight of this great strong Phoebus dashing along with his spinning chariot-wheels. When he pulled up at the door of the Royal, a little crowd of invalids crept out of sunny nooks, and sheltered corners, where they had been resting, to look at him. The waiter, a fat greasy man, who used to let the winter-boarders tear many times at the bell before he dreamt of answering it, heard the tramp of the horses, and the violent pull given to the door-bell by Sir Charles's groom, and in a kind of hazy dream thought that it must be summer again, and that it must be some of the gents from the yachts, as was always so noisy and obstreperous. Before he could rouse himself sufficiently to get to the door, he had been anticipated by the landlord, wit° had scarcely made his bow, before Dr. Bronk, who had noticed the phaeton dashing round the corner, fancied it might be a son or a nephew on the lookout for quarters--and medical attendance--for some invalid relative, came into the portico, and bestowed the greatest care in rubbing his shoes on the hall-mat.