eing us," whispered Matilda, with a
very glassy look about the corner of her eyes.

Eloquence was not just then my forte, so that I contented myself with a
very intelligible look at Fanny, and a tender squeeze of Matilda's hand, as
I seated myself at the table.

Scarcely had I placed myself at the tea-table, with Matilda beside and
Fanny opposite me, each vying with the other in their delicate and kind
attentions, when I totally forgot all my poor friend Power's injunctions
and directions for my management. It is true, I remembered that there was
a scrape of some kind or other to be got out of, and one requiring some
dexterity, too; but what or with whom I could not for the life of me
determine. What the wine had begun, the bright eyes completed; and amidst
the witchcraft of silky tresses and sweet looks, I lost all my reflection,
till the impression of an impending difficulty remained fixed in my mind,
and I tortured my poor, weak, and erring intellect to detect it. At last,
and by a mere chance, my eyes fell upon Sparks; and by what mechanism I
contrived it, I know not, but I immediately saddled him with the whole of
my annoyances, and attributed to him and to his fault any embarrassment I
labored under.

The physiological reason of the fact I'm very ignorant of, but for the
truth and frequency I can well vouch, that there are certain people,
certain faces, certain voices, certain whiskers, legs, waistcoats, and
guard-chains, that inevitably produce the most striking effects upon the
brain of a gentleman already excited by wine, and not exactly cognizant of
his own peculiar fallacies.

These effects are not produced merely among those who are quarrelsome in
their cups, for I call the whole 14th to witness that I am not such; but to
any person so disguised, the inoffensiveness of the object is no security
on the other hand,--for I once knew an eight-day clock kicked down a
barrack stairs by an old Scotch major, because he thought it was laughing
at him. To this source alone, whatever it be, can I attribute the feeling
of rising indignation with which I contemplated the luckless cornet, who,
seated at the fire, unnoticed and uncared for, seemed a very unworthy
object to vent anger or ill-temper upon.

"Mr. Sparks, I fear," said I, endeavoring at the time to call up a look of
very sovereign contempt,--"Mr. Sparks, I fear, regards my visit here in the
light of an intrusion."

Had poor Mr. Sparks been told to proceed