Further round the Crescent, Mrs. Choke let furnished apartments to valetudinarian bachelors, and in one of the brightest of these, Mr. Francis Vernon sat before his looking glass contemplatively combing his wig. His closely cropped curly hair accentuated the lines of a profile already inclined to sharpness, just as his red lips enhanced the surrounding paleness of his complexion. He combed his wig very much as a man strokes a cat. The caress half-felt loses itself in speculation, and just now Mr. Vernon was gazing at the wrought-iron balcony of the opposite house where Miss Phyllida Courteen, all swansdown and rosy cheeks, was plucking half a dozen snowdrops from a bough-pot. These were to be enclosed in a note and sent by the hand of the first pleasant-looking passer-by to Miss Sukey Morton in the Western Colonnade. And the aforesaid Miss Morton would, in the estimation of Miss Courteen, simper and blush and confide in her dear Phyllida that, though she had known he admired her and indeed, had proffered her a dropped fan more than once at the Monday Assemblies, yet never, _never_ had she for a moment imagined that he would _dare_ to send her a Valentine, and if he had, she would have _died_ rather than take it, yes, _died_, for _what_ she would do when she passed him next Monday evening, she could not _think_, especially as he was _known_ to be partial to her, and her Mechlin pinner was quite ruined by the _abominable_ wax-candles they would use just because the P---- of W---- was not coming that year after all. Miss Courteen was so much charmed by this loquacious dream that she began to compose an appropriate verse destined to be wrapped round the green stalks of the flowers. _The snowdrop's white_ _And so are you. . ._ The smallest foot in the world beat time upon the balcony making the iron bars on which she stood vibrate in twanging chords, but failed to summon from the caves of Poesy an echo worthy of the snowdrop's white. "The last line is monstrous easy," she thought. _The bluebell's blue!_ and the accumulation of liquids and labials has enchanted her mouth to such a delicious pout that Mr. Vernon is leaning forward and combing his wig more contemplatively than ever, for, although he cannot see his charmer's lips, he feels sure from the attitude of her whole body that her face is infernally captivating, and the memory of her last whispered good-bye assails him and kindles a leaping flame at the back of his hazel eyes.