f
the stairs and shouted for Arabella, who returned no answer, and was
late in her appearance at table. Grace concluded, Mr. Pole said, "Letter
gone? I wanted to see it, you know."

"It was as well not, papa," Arabella replied.

Mr. Pole shook his head seriously. The ladies were thankful for the
presence of Mr. Barrett. And lo! this man was in perfect evening
uniform. He looked as gentlemanly a visitor as one might wish to
see. There was no trace of the poor organist. Poverty seemed rather a
gold-edge to his tail-coat than a rebuke to it; just as, contrariwise,
great wealth is, to the imagination, really set off by a careless
costume. One need not explain how the mind acts in such cases: the
fact, as I have put it, is indisputable. And let the young men of our
generation mark the present chapter, that they may know the virtue
residing in a tail-coat, and cling to it, whether buffeted by the waves,
or burnt out by the fire, of evil angry fortune. His tail-coat safe, the
youthful Briton is always ready for any change in the mind of the moody
Goddess. And it is an almost certain thing that, presuming her to have
a damsel of condition in view for him as a compensation for the slaps he
has received, he must lose her, he cannot enter a mutual path with her,
if he shall have failed to retain this article of a black tail, his
social passport. I mean of course that he retain respect for the article
in question. Respect for it firmly seated in his mind, the tail may
be said to be always handy. It is fortune's uniform in Britain: the
candlestick, if I may dare to say so, to the candle; nor need any young
islander despair of getting to himself her best gifts, while he has her
uniform at command, as glossy as may be.

The ladies of Brookfield were really stormed by Mr. Barrett's elegant
tail. When, the first glass of wine nodded over, Mr. Pole continued the
discourse of the morning, with allusions to French cooks, and his cook,
their sympathies were taken captive by Mr. Barrett's tact: the door to
their sympathies having been opened to him as it were by his attire.
They could not guess what necessity urged Mr. Pole to assert his
locked-up self so vehemently; but it certainly made the stranger shine
with a beautiful mild lustre. Their spirits partly succumbed to him by
a process too lengthened to explain here. Indeed, I dare do no more than
hint at these mysteries of feminine emotion. I beg you to believe that
when we are dealing