eir movements from the bank.

_Miss Ilex._ I have seen much graceful motion in dancing, in private
society and on the Italian stage; and some in skating before to-day; but
anything so graceful as that double-gliding over the ice by those two
remarkably handsome young persons, I certainly never saw before.

_Miss Gryll._ Lord Curryfin is unquestionably handsome, and Miss Niphet,
especially with that glow on her cheeks, is as beautiful a young woman
as imagination can paint. They move as if impelled by a single will. It
is impossible not to admire them both.

_The Rev. Dr. Opimian._ They remind me of the mythological fiction, that
Jupiter made men and women in pairs, like the Siamese twins; but in this
way they grew so powerful and presumptuous, that he cut them in two; and
now the main business of each half is to look for the other; which is
very rarely found, and hence so few marriages are happy. Here the two
true halves seem to have met.

The doctor looked at Miss Gryll, to see what impression this remark
might make on her. He concluded that, if she thought seriously of Lord
Curryfin, she would show some symptom of jealousy of Miss Niphet; but
she did not. She merely said--

'I quite agree with you, doctor. There is evidently great congeniality
between them, even in their respective touches of eccentricity.'

But the doctor's remark had suggested to her what she herself had failed
to observe; Lord Curryfin's subsidence from ardour into deference, in
his pursuit of herself. She had been so undividedly 'the cynosure of
neighbouring eyes,' that she could scarcely believe in the possibility
of even temporary eclipse. Her first impulse was to resign him to
her young friend. But then appearances might be deceitful. Her own
indifference might have turned his attentions into another channel,
without his heart being turned with them. She had seen nothing to show
that Miss Niphet's feelings were deeply engaged in the question. She was
not a coquette; but she would still feel it as a mortification that her
hitherto unquestioned supremacy should be passing from her. She had felt
all along that there was one cause which would lead her to a decided
rejection of _Lord Curryfin._ But her Orlando had not seized the golden
forelock; perhaps he never would. After having seemed on the point of
doing so, he had disappeared, and not returned. He was now again within
the links of the sevenfold chain, which had bound him from his earlies