indicated as much. _Nulli oculi retrorsum_, seemed the motto of
the day, save when some anxious mother would turn a backward and
uneasy glance towards the staircase, where her daughter, preferring a
lieutenant to a lobster, was listening with elated look to his tale of
love and glory. 'Eliza, my dear, sit next me.'--'Anna, my love, come
down here.' These brief commands, significantly as they were uttered,
would be lost to those for whom intended, and only served to amuse
the bystanders, and awaken them to a quicker perception of the passing
flirtation. Some philosopher has gravely remarked, that the critical
moments of our life are the transitions from one stage or state of our
existence to another; and that our fate for the future depends in
a great measure upon those hours in which we emerge from infancy to
boyhood, from boyhood to manhood, from manhood to maturer years. Perhaps
the arguments of time might be applied to place, and we might thus
be enabled to show how a staircase is the most dangerous portion of a
building. I speak not here of the insecurity of the architecture,
nor, indeed, of any staircase whose well-tempered light shines down at
noonday through the perfumed foliage of a conservatory; but of the same
place, a blaze of lamplight, about two in the morning, crowded,
crammed, and creaking by an anxious and elated throng pressing towards a
supper-room. Whether it is the supper or the squeeze, the odour of balmy
lips, or the savoury smell of roast ducks--whether it be the approach to
silk tresses, or _sillery mousseux_--whatever the provocation, I cannot
explain it; but the fact remains: one is tremendously given in such a
place, at such a time, to the most barefaced and palpable flirtation. So
strongly do I feel on this point, that, were I a lawgiver, I would never
award damages for a breach of contract, where the promise was made on a
staircase.

As for me, my acquaintance with Miss Bellew was not of more than an
hour's standing. During that time we had contrived to discuss the
ball-room, its guests, its lights, its decorations, the music, the
dancers--in a word, all the commonplaces of an evening party; thence we
wandered on to Dublin, society in general, to Ireland, and Irish habits,
and Irish tastes; quizzed each other a little about our respective
peculiarities, and had just begun to discuss the distinctive features
which characterise the softer emotions in the two nations, when the
announcement of