e had just left and hurry toward me across the hall shaking high the
pair of blue-bound volumes his allusion to the uninvited, the verily
importunate loan of which by Mrs. Greville had lingered on the air after
his dash in quest of them; "Ah those books--take them away, please,
away, away!" I hear him unreservedly plead while he thrusts them again
at me, and I scurry back into our conveyance, where, and where only,
settled afresh with my companion, I venture to assure myself of the
horrid truth that had squinted at me as I relieved our good friend of
his superfluity. What indeed was this superfluity but the two volumes of
my own precious "last"--we were still in the blest age of
volumes--presented by its author to the lady of Milford Cottage, and by
her, misguided votary, dropped with the best conscience in the world
into the Witley abyss, out of which it had jumped with violence, under
the touch of accident, straight up again into my own exposed face?

The bruise inflicted there I remember feeling for the moment only as
sharp, such a mixture of delightful small questions at once salved it
over and such a charm in particular for me to my recognising that this
particular wrong--inflicted all unawares, which exactly made it
sublime--was the only rightness of our visit. Our hosts hadn't so much
as connected book with author, or author with visitor, or visitor with
anything but the convenience of his ridding them of an unconsidered
trifle; grudging as they so justifiedly did the impingement of such
matters on their consciousness. The vivid demonstration of one's failure
to penetrate there had been in the sweep of Lewes's gesture, which could
scarce have been bettered by his actually wielding a broom. I think
nothing passed between us in the brougham on revelation of the identity
of the offered treat so emphatically declined--I see that I couldn't
have laughed at it to the confusion of my gentle neighbour. But I quite
recall my grasp of the _interest_ of our distinguished friends'
inaccessibility to the unattended plea, with the light it seemed to
throw on what it was really to _be_ attended. Never, never save as
attended--by presumptions, that is, far other than any then hanging
about one--would one so much as desire _not_ to be pushed out of sight.
I needn't attempt, however, to supply all the links in the chain of
association which led to my finally just qualified beatitude: I had been
served right enough in all conscience