That night and the first hours of morning seemed to Lofty an age. As soon as breakfast was over he stationed himself at the window and continued impatiently looking out for Arthur’s appearance. At length about eleven o’clock a.m. he perceived him advancing with his usual stately tread up the street. Flinging open the sash he jumped out and ran to meet him. As they walked towards the great bookseller’s the marquis mentioned that he had invited a few friends to meet him there that morning, as he wished them to be spectators of Lofty’s triumph. The latter bowed and expressed his gratitude for what he considered to be another instance of my brother’s attachment to him. They now entered the shop. Above a hundred men of the highest rank were assembled there, including Castlereagh, Molyneux, Aberford, Beauclerk, Sidney, Russell, Howard, Morpeth, etc., and by himself, leaning against a pillar, was Hamilton the architect, his pale face and his usually downcast eyes glowing with uncommon ardour behind the marble slab which, supported on Ionic columns, forms the counter. Sergeant Tree was seated in an elevated armchair. To him Lofty immediately advanced and, presenting his manuscript, said in a loud and pompous tone of voice: ‘Look at that, sir, and tell me what you will give me for it.’ Tree took out his spectacles, placed them with all imaginable tranquillity, and after reading the title-page and glancing over the body of the work returned it coolly to the washerwoman, saying in his quiet business-like manner: ‘This, my lord, is not in my way. You have probably mistaken me for Mrs. Bleachum, the washerwoman.’ A peal of laughter from the noble bystanders accompanied these words. Lofty stood motionless a moment as if transfixed, then turned to the marquis with a look of speechless agony. Instead of the cloud of sympathetic sorrow he had expected to see brooding on his friend’s brow his eyes fell on a countenance illumined by a smile of arch, cold, triumphant, deep and devilish meaning. It pierced at once the thick veil of infatuation that obscured his-mental vision, and suddenly the light of truth burst on him with almost annihilating splendour. While he stood more like a statue than a living man Arthur advanced and said in a low and soft voice, but so distinct as to be heard by all present: ‘Well, Frederic, don’t you think a rejected essay is almost as agreeable as a condemned tragedy?’ C. BRONTË, _October 6th_, 1833. A PEEP INTO A PICTURE BOOK