order to produce an
impression of profound dulness in the reader's mind. Lushington's hair
continued to be as preternaturally smooth as before, his beard was as
glossy and his complexion as blooming and child-like, and yet the look
of pain that Margaret had seen in his face was there most of the time
during those two days.

But in the evening he crossed the river and went to hear _Romeo and
Juliet_, for he knew that it was the last night on which Madame Bonanni
would sing before she left for the London season. He sat in the second
row of the orchestra stalls, and never moved from his seat during the
long performance. No secret intuition told him that Margaret was in the
house, and that if he stood up and looked round after the second act he
might see her and Madame De Rosa going out and coming back again and
sitting at the end of a back row. He did not want to see any one he
knew, and the surest way of avoiding acquaintances was to sit perfectly
still while most people went out between the acts. His face only
betrayed that the music pleased him, by turning a shade paler now and
then; at the places he liked best, he shut his eyes, as if he did not
care to see Madame Bonanni or the fat tenor.

She sang very beautifully that night, especially after the second act,
and Lushington thought he had hardly ever heard so much real feeling in
her marvellous voice. Afterwards he walked home, and he heard it all
the way, and for an hour after he had gone to bed, when he fell asleep
at last, and dreamt that he himself had turned into a very fat tenor
and was singing Romeo, but the Juliet was Margaret Donne instead of
Madame Bonanni, and though she sang like an angel, she was evidently
disgusted by his looks; which was very painful indeed, and made him
sing quite out of tune and perspire terribly.

'You look hot,' said Margaret-Juliet, with cruel distinctness, just as
he was trying to throw the most intense pathos into the words, ''tis
not the lark, it is the nightingale!'

Perhaps dreaming nonsense is also a subject for the inquiries of
psychology. At the moment the poor man's imaginary sufferings were
positively frightful, and he awoke with a gasp. He had always secretly
dreaded growing fat, he had always felt a horror of anything like
singing or speaking in public, and the only thing in the world he
really feared was the possibility of being ridiculous in Margaret's
eyes. Of course the ingenious demon of his dreams found a way