s what he
said of himself. I told him he would certainly be caught in the end by
some unworthy person, and then he would look back with regret and misery
upon the chances he had lost, and the unhappiness he had caused to those
whose only faults had been in believing him true when he was false."

"'Better that,' he answered, 'than marrying when he could not make up
his mind.'

"'Then why play the lover?'

"'He only did so while infatuated--he was certain to find faults where
he imagined perfection.'"

"What assurance!" said Mrs. Pierce Bradshaw.

"'I am sure,' I said, 'Lelia was very charming. Lelia Medwin was an
excellent, amiable little creature, with both good temper and good
sense.'

"'That was it,' he said: 'only fancy the six-foot-one-and-three-quarters
wedded to bare five feet! The absurdity struck me one night as we were
waltzing and whirling past a looking-glass; I was obliged to bend
double, though I never felt it till I saw it.'"

"Really, I have not patience," observed Mrs. Bradshaw. "And so her
feelings were to be trampled upon because she was not tall enough to
please _him_! Why did he not think of that before?"

"'But there was Lizzy Grey, related to half the aristocracy, with a
voice like an angel.'

"'A vixen,' he said, 'though of exquisite beauty--could have torn my
eyes out for the little attention I paid Mrs. Green.'

"'_Little attention!_' I repeated; 'more than little.'

"'Her wit was delicious,' he replied; 'but she was a widow! Only fancy
the horror of being compared with 'My dear first husband!'

"'Then your conquest of Lady Di' Johnson! How badly you behaved to her!'

"'She was magnificent on horseback; and her _cigarette_ as fascinating
as the fan of a Madrid belle, or the _tournure_ of a Parisian lady. They
were her _two points_. But when she relinquished both, I believe in
compliment to _me_, she became even more commonplace than the most
commonplace woman.'"

"The puppy!" muttered the lady: "the dreadful puppy! I could not have
believed it!"

Mr. Bradshaw did not heed the interruption, but continued:

"'And who,' I inquired, 'was the Lady of the Lake? I do not mean of
_this lake_, for I see her reign is already over--your passion expired
with the third chapter of her novel, which I know she read to you by
moonlight--but the fair Lady of Geneva, whose betrothed called you out?'

"'Her father was a sugar-boiler,' was the quiet reply: 'a sugar-boiler,
or something of the k