“Out!” I replied, staggering back half a dozen paces—“let me tell you, my fine fellow, that this thing is thoroughly impossible and impracticable; Mr. Talbot is not out. What do you mean?” “Nothing, sir; only Mr. Talbot is not in, that’s all. He rode over to S——, immediately after breakfast, and left word that he would not be in town again for a week.” I stood petrified with horror and rage. I endeavored to reply, but my tongue refused its office. At length I turned on my heel, livid with wrath, and inwardly consigning the whole tribe of the Talbots to the innermost regions of Erebus. It was evident that my considerate friend, il fanatico, had quite forgotten his appointment with myself—had forgotten it as soon as it was made. At no time was he a very scrupulous man of his word. There was no help for it; so smothering my vexation as well as I could, I strolled moodily up the street, propounding futile inquiries about Madame Lalande to every male acquaintance I met. By report she was known, I found, to all—to many by sight—but she had been in town only a few weeks, and there were very few, therefore, who claimed her personal acquaintance. These few, being still comparatively strangers, could not, or would not, take the liberty of introducing me through the formality of a morning call. While I stood thus in despair, conversing with a trio of friends upon the all-absorbing subject of my heart, it so happened that the subject itself passed by. “As I live, there she is!” cried one. “Surprisingly beautiful!” exclaimed a second. “An angel upon earth!” ejaculated a third. I looked; and in an open carriage which approached us, passing slowly down the street, sat the enchanting vision of the opera, accompanied by the younger lady who had occupied a portion of her box. “Her companion also wears remarkably well,” said the one of my trio who had spoken first. “Astonishingly,” said the second; “still quite a brilliant air, but art will do wonders. Upon my word, she looks better than she did at Paris five years ago. A beautiful woman still;—don’t you think so, Froissart?—Simpson, I mean.” “_Still!_” said I, “and why shouldn’t she be? But compared with her friend she is as a rush-light to the evening star—a glow-worm to Antares.” “Ha! ha! ha!—why, Simpson, you have an astonishing tact at making discoveries—original ones, I mean.” And here we separated, while one of the trio began humming a gay _vaudeville_, of which I caught only the lines— Ninon, Ninon, Ninon à bas— A bas Ninon De L’Enclos!