o make it a little less
romantic, in fact. Her frank and breezy treatment of the subject had
let in a gust of fresh air, and blown away all imagination. For there
naturally was a good deal of that in a passion based on a single
interview and nourished by weekly stimulants at morning services.
In fact, when he presented himself at Krakatoa Villa on Wednesday
evening as invited--the day after Laetitia's remarks about his social
position--he was quite prepared to be introduced to the young woman's
_fiance_, if.... Only, when he got as far as the _if_, he dropped the
subject. As soon as he found there was no such person he came to
believe he would not have been much disconcerted if there had been.
How far this was true, who can say?

He was personally one of those young men about whom you may easily
produce a false impression if you describe them at all. This is
because your reader will take the bit in his teeth, and run away with
an idea. If you say a nose has a bridge to it, this directly produces
in some minds an image like Blackfriars Bridge; that it is straight,
the AEginetan marbles; that it is _retrousse_, the dog in that Hogarth
portrait. Suggest a cheerful countenance, and you stamp your subject
for ever as a Shakespearian clown. So you must be content to know that
Mr. Bradshaw was a good-looking young man, of dark complexion, and of
rather over medium height and good manners. If he had not been, he
would never, as an article of universal provision for parties, have
passed muster at Cattley's. He was like many other young men such as
one sees in shops; but then, what very nice-looking young men one
sometimes sees there! Sally had classed him as a young whippersnapper,
but this was unjust, if it impugned his stature. She repeated the
disparaging epithet when, in further justification to Miss Wilson of
her asking him to her mother's house, she sketched a policy of conduct
to guide inexperienced girls in their demeanour towards new male
friends. "You let 'em come close to, and have a good look," said the
vulgar child. "Half of 'em will be disgusted, and go away in a huff."

Mrs. Nightingale had known Mr. Bradshaw for a long time as a customer
at a shop knows the staff in the background, mere office secretions,
who only ooze out at intervals. For Bradshaw was not strictly a
counter-jumper, although Miss Wilson more than once spoke of him so,
adding, when it was pointed out to her that theoretically he never
went behi