He was fluent and decisive on this point, as he was on every other point on which he had made up his mind. He only stammered and stuttered when he did not know what he was about to say, and this frequently arose from his over-sensitiveness in regard to the feelings of others--a disability which could never be laid to the charge of Dr. Johnson, who was, in consequence, delightfully fluent. On the evening of the third rehearsal of the play with the amended cast, he went to Reynolds's house in Leicester Square to dine. He knew that the Horneck family would be there, and he looked forward with some degree of apprehension to his meeting with Mary. He felt that she might think he looked for some explanation of her strange words spoken when he was by her side at the Pantheon. But he wanted no explanation from her. The words still lay as a burden upon his heart, but he felt that it would pain her to attempt an explanation of them, and he was quite content that matters should remain as they were. Whatever the words might have meant, it was impossible that they could mean anything that might cause him to think of her with less reverence and affection. He arrived early at Reynolds's house, but it did not take him long to find out that he was not the first arrival. From the large drawingroom there came to his ears the sound of laughter--such laughter as caused him to remark to the servant-- “I perceive that Mr. Garrick is already in the house, Ralph.” “Mr. Garrick has been here with the young ladies for the past half-hour, sir,” replied Ralph. “I shouldn't wonder if, on inquiry, it were found that he has been entertaining them,” said Goldsmith. Ralph, who knew perfectly well what was the exact form that the entertainment assumed, busied himself hanging up the visitor's hat. The fact was that, for the previous quarter of an hour, Garrick had been keeping Mary Horneck and her sister, and even Miss Reynolds, in fits of laughter by his burlesque account of Goldsmith's interview with an amanuensis who had been recommended to him with a view of saving him much manual labour. Goldsmith had told him the story originally, and the imagination of Garrick was quite equal to the duty of supplying all the details necessary for the burlesque. He pretended to be the amanuensis entering the room in which Goldsmith was supposed to be seated working laboriously at his “Animated Nature.”