Mr. Lovely strolled through the archway into the yard all fresh and shining after the morning swill. Along the galleries, the chambermaids were hurrying about their work, and the figure of Mrs. Grindle, the housekeeper, glittering and jingling with keys, warned him no loitering in the galleries would be tolerated at that hour of the day. Two horses were being groomed in the courtyard, but as he had discussed all their points both with their owners and the hostlers at least half a dozen times before, he was not inclined to pursue the outworn theme farther. "Mr. Clare about?" he inquired. "Han't seen him, y'r honour," answered one of the workers. "'Es that Mr. Clare?" asked the other. "Yes, my good fellow, have you seen him?" "Rode over to Baverstock Regis to see a maiden aunt," the man replied. "Ho! ho! ho!" roared the first, "dang me if that bean't the best I ever hard. Ho! Ho! ho!" and convulsed with merriment, the man slapped his tight-breeched thighs with frequency and vigour. "You make the very d--l of a noise, Sirrah," said Mr. Lovely fretfully. "I axe y'r honour's pardon, but when I hard Jock there talking of maiden aunts--ho--ho--ho! and when I minds that shaapely--ah! well it doan't do to mention no naames, but it come over me sudden to laugh," and with this apology, the humorous hostler picked up his mare's near fore-leg, and continued to chuckle at intervals for the rest of the day. Mr. Lovely began to think Tony Clare was confoundedly young, and when one young man begins to think another young man confoundedly young, it is usually a convincing proof that the pensive young man is deep in love. "What's a fellow to do?" he sighed as he turned into the coffee-room. It was empty, so he called for a draught of ale, put his feet on the window seat and surveyed the passers-by. He wondered what had become of his friends, and why the d----l all the world was gone mad because the sun shone with unwonted brilliance for the middle of February. Then he remembered it was Valentine day and amused himself with the manufacture of paper darts which he shot at the prettiest young women in range. Unluckily, in an attempt to pierce the ripe heart of buxom Miss Page who assisted at the cook-shop, he wounded the Rector on the nose. This set him moralizing on the fortune of Love. Could anything be more incongruous than Love and the Rector. Yet why not? We are all targets of a dimpled nudity. The phrase caught his fancy. Numberless Cupids in attitudes of attack floated before his mind's eye. "Demme!" thought Mr. Lovely, "my brain is like an Italian ceiling. Targets of a dimpled nudity!" He flung back the lattice to its utmost extent and leaned out to the morning whence the chatter of the world without floated into the sunny room.