Miss McLush rarely walks. When she does it is with the deliberate majesty of a Dido. Her small, plump feet melt to the ground like snow-flakes, and her figure sways to the indolent motion of her limbs with a glorious grace and yieldingness quite indescribable. She was idling slowly up the Mall one evening, just at twilight, with a servant at a short distance behind her, who, to while away the time between her steps, was employing himself in throwing stones at the cows feeding upon the common. A gentleman, with a natural admiration for her splendid person, addressed her. He might have done a more eccentric thing. Without troubling herself to look at him, she turned to her servant and requested him, with a yawn of desperate _ennui_, to knock that fellow down! John obeyed his orders; and, as his mistress resumed her lounge, picked up a new handful of pebbles, and tossing one at the nearest cow, loitered lazily after. Such supreme indolence was irresistible. I gave in—I who never before could summon energy to sigh—I to whom a declaration was but a synonym for perspiration—I—who had only thought of love as a nervous complaint, and of women but to pray for a good deliverance—I—yes—I knocked under. Albina McLush! thou wert too exquisitely lazy. Human sensibilities cannot hold out for ever. I found her one morning sipping her coffee at twelve, with her eyes wide open. She was just from the bath, and her complexion had a soft, dewy transparency, like the cheek of Venus rising from the sea. It was the hour, Lurly had told me, when she would be at the trouble of thinking. She put away with her dimpled forefinger, as I entered, a cluster of rich curls that had fallen over her face, and nodded to me like a water-lily swaying to the wind when its cup is full of rain. “Lady Albina,” said I, in my softest tone, “how are you to-day?” “Beltina,” said she, addressing her maid in a voice as clouded and rich as a south wind on an Æolian, “how am I to-day?” The conversation fell into short sentences, and the dialogue became monologue. I entered upon my declaration with the assistance of Beltina, who supplied her mistress with cologne. I kept her attention alive through the incipient circumstances. Symptoms were soon told. I came to the avowal. Her hand lay reposing on the arm of the sofa, half buried in a muslin _foulard_. I took it up. I pressed the cool, soft fingers to my lips—unforbidden. I rose and looked into her eyes for confirmation. Delicious creature! she was asleep.