at Paris,
where their own acquaintances await them; and, on the other hand, should
I be doomed once more to disappointment, I am equally certain I should
feel no disposition to form a new attachment. Thus did I reason, and
thus I believed; and though I was a kind of consultation opinion among my
friends in "suits of love," I was really then unaware that at no time is
a man so prone to fall in love as immediately after his being jilted. If
common sense will teach us not to dance a bolero upon a sprained ancle,
so might it also convey the equally important lesson, not to expose our
more vital and inflammatory organ to the fire the day after its being
singed.

Reflections like these did not occur to me at this moment; besides that I
was "going the pace" with a forty-horse power of agreeability that left
me little time for thought--least of all, if serious. So stood matters.
I had just filled our tall slender glasses with the creaming and
"petillan" source of wit and inspiration, when the loud crack, crack,
crack of a postillion's whip, accompanied by the shaking trot of a heavy
team, and the roll of wheels, announced a new arrival. "Here they come,"
said I, "only look at them--four horses and one postillion, all
apparently straggling and straying after their own fancy, but yet going
surprisingly straight notwithstanding. See how they come through that
narrow archway--it might puzzle the best four-in-hand in England to do it
better."

"What a handsome young man, if he had not those odious moustaches. Why,
Mr. Lorrequer, he knows you: see, he is bowing to you."

"Me! Oh! no. Why, surely, it must be--the devil--it is Kilkee, Lady
Jane's brother. I know his temper well. One five minutes' observation
of my present intimacy with my fair friends, and adieu to all hopes for
me of calling Lord Callonby my father-in-law. There is not therefore, a
moment to lose."

As these thoughts revolved through my mind, the confusion I felt had
covered my face with scarlet; and, with a species of blundering apology
for abruptly leaving them for a moment, I ran down stairs only in time
sufficient to anticipate Kilkee's questions as to the number of my
apartments, to which he was desirous of proceeding at once. Our first
greetings over, Kilkee questioned me as to my route--adding, that his now
was necessarily an undecided one, for if his family happened not to be at
Paris, he should be obliged to seek after them among the German
w