will have to sit in the back seat: to pay the cab to and from the play: to see glances and bows of recognition passing between them and dubious bucks in the lobbies: and to lend the girls your wife’s gloves, scarfs, ornaments, smelling-bottles, and handkerchiefs, which of course they will never return. If Elizabeth is ailing from any circumstance, they will get a footing in your house, and she will be jealous of them. The ladies of your own family will quarrel with them, of course; and very likely your mother-in-law will tell them a piece of her mind. And you bring this dreary certainty upon you, because, forsooth, you fell in love with a fine figure, a pair of grey eyes, and a head of auburn (not to say red) hair! O Charles Batchelor! in what a galley hast thou seated thyself, and what a family is crowded in thy boat! All these thoughts are passing in my mind, as good Mrs. Bonnington is prattling to me—I protest I don’t know about what. I think I caught some faint sentences about the Patagonian mission, the National schools, and Mr. Bonnington’s lumbago; but I can’t say for certain. I was busy with my own thoughts. I had asked the awful question—I was not answered. Bessy had even gone away in a huff about my want of gallantry, but I was easy on that score. As for Mr. Drencher, she had told me her sentiments regarding him; and though I am considerably older, yet thought I, I need not be afraid of _that_ rival. But when she says _yes_? Oh, dear! oh, dear! _Yes_ means Elizabeth—certainly, a brave young woman—but it means Mrs. Prior, and Gus, and Amelia Jane, and the whole of that dismal family. No wonder, with these dark thoughts crowding my mind, Mrs. Bonnington found me absent; and, as a comment upon some absurd reply of mine, said, “La! Mr. Batchelor, you must be crossed in love!” Crossed in love! It might be as well for some folks if they _were_ crossed in love. At my age, and having loved madly, as I did, that party in Dublin, a man doesn’t take the second fit by any means so strongly. Well! well! the die was cast, and I was there to bide the hazard. ‘What can be the matter? I look pale and unwell, and had better see Mr. D.?’ Thank you, my dear Mrs. Bonnington. I had a violent—a violent toothache last night-yes, toothache; and was kept awake, thank you. And there’s nothing like having it out? and Mr. D. draws them beautifully, and has taken out six of your children’s? It’s better now; I daresay it will be better still, soon. I retire to my chamber: I take a book—can’t read one word of it. I resume my tragedy. Tragedy? Bosh!