Ere time could be given for any one to hazard a conjecture, the figure had advanced from behind the trees, and had spanned in an instant the festal board, with two enormous stilts, on which they now perceived it was mounted. The Misses Fitzloom shrieked again. The figure imitated their cries in his queer voice, and gradually raising one enormous stilt up into the air, stood only on one support, which was planted behind the lovely Araminta. “O! inimitable Essper George!” exclaimed Violet Fane. Here Signor Punch commenced a song, which he executed in the tone peculiar to his character, and in a style which drew applauses from all; and then, with a hop, step, and a jump, he was again behind the chestnut-tree. In a moment he advanced without his stilts towards the table. Here, on the turf, he again commenced his antics; kicking his nose with his right foot, and his hump with his left one; executing splendid somersets, and cutting every species of caper, and never ceasing for a moment from performing all his movements to the inspiring music of his own melodious voice. At last, jumping up very high in the air, he fell as if all his joints were loosened, and the Misses Fitzloom, imagining that his bones were really broken, shrieked again. But now Essper began the wonderful performance of a dead body possessed by a devil, and in a minute his shattered corpse, apparently without the assistance of any of its members, began to jump and move about the ground with miraculous rapidity. At length it disappeared behind the chestnut-tree. “I really think,” said Mr. St. George, “it is the most agreeable day I ever passed in all my life.” “Decidedly!” said St. Anthony. “St. John, you remember our party to Paestum with Lady Calabria M’Crater and the Marquis of Agrigentum. It was nothing to this! Nothing! Do you know I thought that rather dull.” “Yes, too elaborate; too highly finished; nothing of the pittore improvisatore. A party of this kind should be more sketchy in its style; the outline more free, and less detail.” “Essper is coming out to-day,” said Vivian to Miss Fane, “after a long, and, I venture to say, painful forbearance. However, I hope you will excuse him. It seems to amuse us.” “I think it is delightful. See! here he comes again.” He now appeared in his original costume; the one in which Vivian first met him at the fair. Bowing, he threw his hand carelessly over his mandolin, and having tried the melody of its strings, sang with great taste, and a sweet voice; sweeter from its contrast with its previous shrill tones; a very pretty romance. All applauded him very warmly, and no one more so than Miss Fane. “Ah! inimitable Essper George, how can we sufficiently thank you! How well he plays! and his voice is quite beautiful. Oh! could not we dance? would not it be delightful? and he could play on his guitar. Think of the delicious turf!” Omnes, “Delightful! delightful!” They rose from the table.