“Mark! Mark Dalston, O, Mark! O, my dear!” ran the thin strain. “Are you going to think well of it, Mark--think well of it, Mark Dalston? Have you started on your way to come and compound with Mother Carey, Mark, my love? You’ve answered Yes to her message, haven’t you?--but you aren’t always a gentleman of your word, you know, Mark. Best to be it in this case, O, my dear, my dear! I could get my teeth into you here, nicely, now--couldn’t I?” Suddenly she came alert, pricking her ears to the sound of a quick, soft footstep outside. II Mr Mark Dalston, a young man of particular ambitions and passions, had also that hospitability of conscience which can welcome and reconcile the most antagonistic emotions. He never suffered material self-interests and moral scruples to fall at odds within himself, but was the tactful and charming host to all that came to be entertained within his breast. There one might see grossness and reason, sensualism and intellectuality, the virtuoso and the Vandal, all table couples at once, and at perfectly harmonious discourse. They met on the common ground of sociability, and forbore all destructive criticism of one another so long as Mark’s lights shone upon their differences. He was extraordinarily popular with quite a number of divergent familiars--a man without prejudices, and always ready to entertain a new emotion. Mark was of that good nature, in short, that he could never say No to himself, however much the interests of other people might be affected by the partiality. His sympathies were wide, but their application was close. Like the centre of a venous system, he was all heart, and gave nothing but what he was sure to receive back at compound interest. Fortune having condemned him, for a brief period, to an ushership at a suburban grammar school, he had not repined over his lot, but had sought, quite naturally and amiably, an amelioration of its prosy conditions in the pursuit of such supernumerary pleasures and self-indulgences as its off hours could be made to yield. It was always his principle to eschew consequences until they were upon him, and insistent. And then he would set his fine wits and intellect at work to neutralise them.