picture indeed, Miss Foster was perfectly conscious of her
charms, and a mistress of coquettishness in her use of them. A true
child of pleasure-loving Sydney, she might have posed with very little
preparation as a Juliet or a Desdemona, and to my youthful fancy
carried about with her the charming gaiety and romantic tenderness of
the most delightful among Boccaccio's ladies. (Sydney was just then
beginning to be referred to by writers as the Venice of the Pacific,
and I was greatly taken with the comparison.)

A week or so later, I was honoured by an invitation to dine at my
chief's house one Saturday night; and from that point onward my visits
became frequent, my subjugation unquestioning and complete. This was
the one brief period of my youth in which I flung away prudence and
became youthfully extravagant, not merely in thought but in the
expenditure of money. I suppose fully half my salary, for some time,
was given to the purchase of sweets and flowers, pretty booklets and
the like, for Mabel Foster; and, of the remainder of my earnings, the
tailor took heavier toll than he had ever done before.

For example, when that first invitation to dinner reached me--on a
Monday--I had never had my arms through the sleeves of a dress-coat.
Mr. Smith kindly offered the loan of his time-honoured evening suit,
pointing out, I dare say truly, that such garments were being 'cut
very full just now.' But, no; I felt that the occasion demanded an
epoch-marking plunge on my part; and to this end Mr. Smith was good
enough to introduce me to his own tailor, through whom, as I
understood, I could obtain the benefit of some sort of trade reduction
in price, by virtue of Mr. Smith's one time position as a commercial
traveller.

During the week the eddies caused by my plunge penetrated beyond the
world of tailoring, and doubtless produced their effect upon the white
tie and patent leather shoe trade. But despite my lavish preparations,
Saturday afternoon found me in the blackest kind of despair. Fully
dressed in evening kit, I had been sitting on my bed for an hour, well
knowing that all shops were closed, and facing the lamentable fact
that I had no suitable outer garment with which to cloak my splendour
on the way to Potts Point. It was Mr. Smith who discovered the
omission, and he, too, who had made me feel the full tragedy of it.
The covert coat he pressed upon me would easily have buttoned behind
my back, and Mrs. Hastings's kindly