clumsiness."

And "Madam," says he very gallantly, "I'm incredibly obliged, for you've given me a rhyme."

"Oh! pray tell me—was it to 'white'?"

"Nay! ’twas harder than that," he murmurs.

"But I think that is monstrous difficult."

"Bright, sight, light," (cheerfully) "height," (regretfully) "night," (hopefully) and "fight," (fiercely).

"Indeed," adds Phyllida, "I thought of every one of them, but not one would fit the sense."

The young gentleman who is a rhymester himself, grows interested. "Might I," says he, "without impertinence inquire your necessity?"

"Sure, 'tis for a Valentine," and as Mr. Lovely's face darkens, she hurriedly adds, "for a young lady, a friend of mine, you'll see the direction writ on the flap."

His face clears again and he asks,

"You wish it delivered?"

"Oh, sir! how did you guess?"

"By accident, ma'am, or a happy intuition, I stepped out to take the air this fine morning, and chance has discovered for me an incontrovertible excuse for such idle exercise. To be footman to a sister of the Muses is surely appropriate service for a poet."

"Then you are a poet?"

"My publisher affirms it."

"How romantick truly!" but the tail of the sigh is interrupted by her mother's voice, and she has bare time to murmur her thanks, drop a genteel curtsey and vanish. As for Mr. Lovely he has registered a vow to attend the Monday Assembly next week instead of sitting down to Hazard at the Blue Boar Inn.

Abovestairs all is confusion because Mrs. Courteen cannot make up her mind between yellow lutestring and orange silk. Phyllida whose heart is full of the dancing springtide thinks her dear mamma should wear the brightest colours and the richest stuffs in the world.

"For if you would only allow the curtains to be drawn back, you would see what a golden morning it is outside," she complains to her mother who answers:

"Women of fashion, Phyllida, dress by candlelight for candlelight."

Betty the maid, agrees with her young mistress, "Sweet, pretty dear lamb," as she asseverates in Hampshire accents, "Orange silk, say I, and God bless the gaulden sun."

Mrs. Courteen who is sitting nearly half-undressed and quite incapable of forming a decision, bids Betty go and find out Thomas' opinion. Thomas is the family footman and a great critick of men, women, and religions. Presently Betty comes back and says that Tammas would prefar yaller.

"Why, Betty, why?"

"Because," answers the maid, "he says silks are for the vain and abominable and lutestrings have a pleasant twang and savour of the psalmist."

So Mrs. Courteen turns from yellow sack to orange sack and from primrose-quilted petticoat to apricock-quilted petticoat in despair, till at last Betty asks triumphantly:

"How would it be, ma'am, if you was to wear your most elegant and truly genteel green sattin seeing that it do be Saint Valentine with a smell of green leaves in the air?"

This provokes a new decision, and causes a great rummaging in drawers and presses and closets until the gown, fragrant with last year's lavender, is discovered, when the toilet too long neglected starts afresh.

"What patches, ma'am?" says Betty.

"My Cupid's bow and the two tears of widowhood."

"What scents, mamma?" asks Phyllida.

"My Citron Essence, child."

Then shoes are buckled, stockings are gartered, and a black mantua placed gently round her shoulders. One more touch of powder, one more brush from the rouge pot, one more flounce and one more flirt while the watchet ribbands in the cap are hastily changed to ribbands of palest apple-green, and a pair of emerald snaps are quickly fastened.

"Does my hoop sit straight? Oh! Lud! I vow I shall be late."

A breathless moment and, in place of the mantua, a tippet of pheasants' feathers is adjusted. Down the Crescent is heard the opening of many doors. Phyllida runs to the window, draws back the curtains so that the sun streams in upon the sicklied candles.

"Has the Beau appeared yet?" asks Mrs. Courteen.

"Here he comes, and oh! mamma, he is wearing a suit of olive-green."

"What great good fortune! what taste I shall display. Green is certainly the fashionable colour," and Mrs. Courteen began to trill to a tune of her own invention....

"I shall be à la mode, I shall be à la mode and very bon ton and très bon ton."

Radiant, she descends the stairs followed by Betty carrying an enormous glass goblet. Outside, rubicund Thomas with heavily knobbed cane awaits her. The widow glances over her shoulder at the crowds swinging down the street, all equipped with glass goblets of various sizes and shapes. She throws an anxious glance towards the head of the procession. The Beau is certainly in green of a shade slightly darker than her own but, nevertheless, distinctly comparable. She tosses her cap in anticipation of the envied triumph and sails in the general direction.

And you, Achates, who have accompanied me so early in the morning to the toilets of some of our principal characters, pray give yourself the additional trouble of thinking what a Great Man he must be to induce these butterflies and moths of fashion to sally forth Cap à Pie perfect at half-past eight o'clock of a February morning.

"Let Bath be true to her bedgowns," he wrote, "in Curtain Wells we are ignorant that men and women undress."

When we think of that apoplectick Circumference which so lately protruded, we can heartily assent to his opinion.

Chapter the Second

THE PUMP ROOM

AS all roads are commonly reputed to lead to Earls Court, so here at Curtain Wells all roads led to the Pump Room. It dominated the city from the summit of a moderately steep hill as the Acropolis dominates the almost equally famous city of Athens. In certain aspects it bore a remarkable likeness to a Greek temple with its fluted columns and portico haunted by many white pigeons. It was even more like a gigantick summer-house whose interior was always open to the four winds. Any reasonable explanation of a spring that gushed forth at the very top of a hill always eluded those who toiled laboriously up the slope; but, as a more religious butterfly once remarked, Providence plainly designed it to serve some useful purpose by allowing it to gush forth at such an unexpected elevation. The same lady used to regard volcanoes as an uncomfortable if divine method of destroying large numbers of Papists together, and would pertinently observe that if England had admitted the claims of the Pretender, she was convinced what was now a cool, health-giving fountain would have boiled over to the horrid accompaniment of flames and lava. At precisely a quarter to nine o'clock, Beau Ripple paused at the foot of the hill to survey through a monocle his flurried followers. A wag once said that Ripple liked to gaze at life through the wrong end of a spy-glass, because he himself was of so small a stature. Whether this monocle actually diminished his world to the size of an ant-heap, I do not know, but certainly the whole assemblage stopped to recover their breath as if conscious of their utter lack of importance in the eyes of the Great little Man. The Physician-in-chief was solemnly beckoned into hearing.

"Two minutes," said the Beau.

Mr. Oboe the Physician opened the lid of an enormous watch attached to a red silk fob and regarded the dial with an expression of great intentness. He might, so complete was his abstraction, have been feeling the pulse of the Exquisite Mob behind him.

Slowly the minutes rolled by while the Beau took several possessive sniffs of the young spring air. Not an unseemly whisper disturbed the silence. So still was it that above the cooing of the sacred pigeons on the roof of the Pump Room, far down in the valley could be heard the lowing