Shuffler was a house-agent who had to do with all the letting and taking, overhauling and repairing, of most of the habitations in our neighbourhood. He was a portly, oily personage; one who clipped his English royally, and walked, through the effects of bunions, I believe-- although some mistook it for gout, and gave him the credit of being afflicted with that painful but aristocratic malady--as if he were continuously on pattens, or wore those clumsy wooden sabots which the Normandy peasantry use. He was also one-eyed, like Cyclops, the place of the missing organ being temporarily filled with a round glass orb, whose nature could be detected at a glance; this seemed to stare at you with a dull, searching look and take mental and disparaging stock of your person, while the sound eye was winking and blinking at you as jovially as you please. Shuffler was affable enough to me, as usual, in despite of Lady Dasher having such a bad opinion of his manners; but, he could give me no information such as I wanted to hear. Everybody, really, appeared to be as cautious as "Non mi recordo" was on Queen Caroline's trial. Nobody had heard of anybody coming to our neighbourhood. Nobody had seen any strange faces about. Nobody knew anything! It was quite vexatious. I haunted the Prebend's Walk. I went to church three times every Sunday, but did not meet her. The only thing I had to assure me that it was not all a dream, and that I had really seen her, was the little spray of mignonette, which I carried next my heart. It was now July. Sultry August came and passed; dull September followed suit; dreary October ensued, in the natural cycle of the seasons; foggy, suicidal November came; and yet, _she_ came not! I felt almost weary of waiting and looking out and longing, notwithstanding the inward assurance I had, and the fact of my whole nature being imbued with the belief that we should meet again. We _must_ meet. I knew _that_, I felt firmly convinced of it. Thus the year wore on. Weeks and months elapsed since our meeting in church, which I should never, never forget. Dreary, dreary expectation! I lost interest regarding things in which I had formerly been interested. The society of people which I had previously coveted became distasteful to me. Lady Dasher, you may be sure, I never went nigh; _she_ would have altogether overwhelmed me. As for that insufferable ass, Horner, he was always asking me whenever we met, which was much oftener than I cared about, with a provoking simper and his unmeaning, eye-glass stare and drawling voice--coupled with a tone of would-be-facetious irony--"Bai-ey Je-ove! I say, old fellah, seen those ladies in hawf-mawning yet, ah?" Brute! I could have kicked him; and I wonder now that I didn't! CHAPTER THREE. M'APPARI. "She's coming, my own, my sweet! Had she never so airy a tread, My heart would hear her, and beat, Were it earth in an earthy bed!"