So have I found it through life--always provided that the attractive and companionable qualities were otherwise in abundance. And this theory has at least given heartiness to my good wishes for my fairer acquaintances and friends. Is it not better to come to such a philosophical conclusion, than to be always envying other people's good fortune?

Shifting, therefore, my ground, I was rapidly possessed by a strong interest in Miss Verner's future welfare--much of which was undoubtedly genuine.

Delicately, and by gently leading her on, I gathered something of the story of her courtship, though I must needs confess that I cannot now call to mind a word of it. It may be of more interest to state that she was to make Mr. Easton the happiest of men, within six weeks or so of that time; and that the honey-moon was to be spent in a ramble on the Continent. Very emphatically and very sincerely did I wish her a pleasant time of it.

But the most agreeable evenings will come to a close. This one--with its revival of a boy's casual acquaintance, with its momentary castle-building, and its subsequent benevolence of feeling--this one, like all others, passed away. It did not die out, as the fag-end of a dinner-party sometimes will; it was cut short to me by the "good night!" of Mary Verner, as she took her departure, leaning on Mr. Easton's arm, in the train of an elderly female relative.

When the drawing-room door closed upon her graceful figure, I felt for a moment as though the gas had been suddenly turned off. I recollect, however, the hostess's observation, dropped to the accompaniment of a playfully malicious smile:

"Didn't I tell you, you would like my friend Mary Verner?"

"Yes," was the reply, "and I have passed a most delightful evening; but I don't think it quite fair, Mrs. F."--here there was a terrible smash of the theory--"to open the gates of Paradise, and then slam them in a poor fellow's face?"

I was to have gone, that night, to a ball in Devonshire Place, expressly to meet--Never mind; I was not in the humour for dancing or flirting. I went straight home, and to bed. I tossed about a good deal, and finally dreamed about George and the pony, and that I was climbing the old chestnut-trees. As for Mary Verner, I couldn't in my sleep conjure up her image. When I thought I had it--as is the way in dreams, you know, if you ever studied them--I couldn't get nearer to her than the plaguy old family coachman. It was only when broad 

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