“Hang Lizzie Dangler!” I exclaimed, impatiently. “Can’t you answer a question for once in your life—did you see them, or not?”

“Weally, Lorton,” said he, in quite an imploring way, “you needn’t get angwy with a fellah, because he can’t tell you what you want to know, you know! It’s weally too hot for that sawt of thing. I didn’t see them, I tell you. I can’t say mo-ah than that, can I? You mustn’t expect a fellah to see evwybody. Why, it’s seem-plee impawsible!”

His languid drawl exasperated me.

“Oh, bother!” I muttered, sotto voce, but loud enough for him to hear; and turned away from him angrily, leaving him still standing in his pet attitude, taking mental stock of all the fast-looking fair ones who might come under his notice. “Oh, bother?” I am not prepared to assert positively that I did not use a much stronger expletive. He ought to have seen them! What the deuce was the use of his sticking star-gazing there, unless to observe people, I should like to know?

Just fancy, too, his comparing my last madonna, the image and eidolon of whose witching face filled my heart, to that odious little flirt, Baby Blake, a young damsel that hawked her tender affections about at the beck and call of every male biped who might for the moment be enthralled by her charms! It was like his cool impudence. And then, again, his asking me his stupid, inane questions, as if I cared what man, and how many. Lizzie Dangler or any other girl might have “in tow,” as he called it. Idiot! I declare to you I positively hated Horner at that moment, inoffensive and harmless as he was.

I left the precincts of the church; and, walking along the path by the fosse, directed my steps towards the Prebend’s Walk, hoping to light upon the object of my quest.

The air was filled with the fragrance of wild flowers and the smell of the new-mown hay from the adjacent meadows. One heard the buzzing sound of busy insect life around, and the love-calls of song-birds from the hedge-rows; while the grateful shade of the lime-grove seemed to invite repose and suggest peaceful meditation: but I heeded none of these things. I felt, like the singer of “The Banks and Braes of Bonny Doon,” out of harmony with nature and all its surroundings. My thoughts were jostling one another in a wild dance through my breast. Where on earth could they have disappeared so very suddenly! It was quite inexplicable. I must find them. Himmel! I must see her again. I felt in a perfect state of frenzy. So excited was I, that, although it was a broiling hot day in July, I walked along as if I were walking for a wager. I do not think, by the way, that a very learned and distinguished philosopher was so very much out in his reckoning after all, when he laid down the general dogma, that all men are more or less mad. I know, at all events, that I felt mad enough at this moment, as I was careering along the Prebend’s Walk. I was almost nerved up to desperation.

I was an only child; and my parents being both elderly people, rarely mixing in society, I could not make use of home influence, as I might have done if I had had any kind sister to assist me in the way that kind sisters sometimes can assist their brothers when they fall victims to the tender passion. Whom should I ask to help me in my strait? I could not go round everywhere, asking everybody after two ladies dressed in half-mourning, could I? Not exactly. People might take me for a maniac at large; and, even should I be one, still, I would naturally wish to keep my mental derangement to myself. What could I do?

While I was thus perplexing myself with vain imaginings, the recollection of the Dashers occurred to my mind. How was it that I had not thought of them before, when they were the very people for my purpose? Why, not a soul could come into Saint Canon’s parish without their knowledge, and a fresh face in church would set them at once on the qui vive. The Dashers, of course, must have seen my unknown ladies, and would be able to give me more information concerning them than I could expect from any one else. I had often heard three to one betted, with no “takers,” that they would tell you everything about any particular person, his, or her, antecedents, prospects, and position, who had but remained for ten consecutive minutes within a radius of one mile of their house. To the Dashers I would consequently go, by all means—thank Providence for the suggestion, and their existence!

Lady Dasher, the head of this all-wise circle, was the youngest daughter of a deceased Irish peer, whom she was continually bringing on the carpet, and causing—unhappy ghost that he was—to retrace his weary way from wherever the spirits of defunct Hibernian nobles most do congregate.

She did not do this through family pride, or with any boastful intention, but simply from sheer morbidity. She was always scoring down grievances in the present by looking back on the past. With her, it was all repining and retrospect. When her poor father, the earl, was alive, she was never slighted in this way. Had her dear papa but now existed, Mistress So-and-So would have returned her call, and not insulted her by her palpable neglect. It was very Christian-like and charitable to say otherwise; but she knew better: it was on account of her being poor, and living in a small house. Oh, yes! she was very well aware of that; yet, although she could not keep up a grand establishment and was poor, she was proud, and would never forget that she was an earl’s daughter. She would not be ground down with impunity! Even the worm will turn: and so on. You can understand her character almost without another word of description.

In spite of being a kindly-hearted soul at bottom, she was really, I believe, the most morbid and melancholic person that ever breathed,—at least, in my experience. Should you, unfortunately, be forced to remain for any length of time in her presence, she had a most singularly depressing influence on your spirits. Wet blanket? Bless your heart! that would be no name for her. She was a patent shower-bath, coming down on all your cherished sentiments, hopes, and schemes, with a “whish” of heavy extinguishment. The cheeriest, sprightliest mortal in the world could not have continued gay in her society. Mark Tapley would have met his match in her, I’m certain.

Next to the demise of her lamented parent—which was indeed an after consideration—Lady Dasher’s marriage was the source and well-spring of all her woes. She had espoused, as soon as she had a will of her own, a handsome young gin distiller, who “ran” a large manufactory in Essex. People said it was entirely a love match; but, whether that was the case or no, all I know is, that on changing the honoured name of Planetree—the first Earl had been boot-black to the conquering Cromwell in Ireland—for the base-born patronymic Dasher, all her troubles began. Her noble relatives cut her dead in the first instance, as Dasher, aspiring though he was, aspired a trifle too high. The connection was never acknowledged; and his papa-in-law, utterly ignoring his entity, never gave him the honour of an invitation to Ballybrogue Castle, the ancestral seat of the Planetrees in Tipperary.

This was not the worst of it, either. Dasher, forgetting that simplicity of his forefathers which had promoted his fortunes, learnt on his marriage to launch out into unheard-of extravagances, spending his hardly-gained substance in riotous living. He kept open house in town and country, getting laughed at, en parenthèse, by the toadies who spunged upon him; failed; got into “the Gazette;” and?—died of a broken heart. Poor Dasher!

On the death of her other half—it is problematical which half he was, whether better or worse—Lady Dasher found herself left with a couple of daughters and a few thousands, which her husband had taken care to settle on her so as to be beyond the reach of his creditors. The provision was ample to have enabled