y?" I repeated after her, looking my delight into her
eyes; when, a frantic chord, struck deep down in the bass by Mrs Clyde,
marking the finish of some piece of Wagner's, recalled us both to every-
day life.

As nobody else had yet arrived, Min challenged me to a game of chess.

I allowed her to win the first game easily.

She pouted, saying that she supposed I thought it below my dignity to
put forth my best energies in playing against a lady!

Thereupon, I _did_ exert myself; but, she was just as provokingly
dissatisfied.

I took her queen. She protested it was unfair.

I offered to restore it to her; she would not have it at any price;--she
wished me to play the game, she said, just as if I were playing with a
man.

I checkmated her. She got up in a pet, saying that chess was a nasty,
stupid, tiresome thing, and that she would not play it any longer.

O, the contrariness of feminine nature!

Other people now began to drop in; and it was _my_ turn to get put out.

I heard it was Min's birthday, which I had not known before. I saw that
they remembered it; while, I, had not brought her even a paltry flower!

Everybody was wishing her "many happy returns of the day." I had not
done so; neither had I any opportunity of atoning for my neglect, as she
was too busy receiving the new comers; but, indeed, I would have been
too proud to excuse myself after witnessing Mr Mawley's "effusion."

He seemed to me to be guilty of unpardonable effrontery in holding Min's
hand such an unconscionably long time in his, when presenting a
miserable shop-bouquet; and, as for the lackadaisical airs of that
insufferable donkey, Horner--I can find no words adequate wherewith to
express what I thought; he was positively sickening!

I did not have another chance of speaking to Min either; that is, unless
I chose to bawl what I had to say across a crowded room; and, I need
hardly say, I did not exactly care about that!

She appeared to me to be very inconsistent, too.

She seemed really much more interested in Mawley's conversation than _I_
thought any reasonable person could be; while _he_ was grinning and
carrying on at a rate, which, if I had been Mrs Clyde, I would not have
allowed for a moment.

O, the equilibriant temperament of the "superior" sex!

Min teased me yet further.

She sang every song that Mawley and Horner asked her for, playing the
accompaniments for the latter when he favoured the company with his id