lked, through the effects of bunions, I believe--
although some mistook it for gout, and gave him the credit of being
afflicted with that painful but aristocratic malady--as if he were
continuously on pattens, or wore those clumsy wooden sabots which the
Normandy peasantry use. He was also one-eyed, like Cyclops, the place
of the missing organ being temporarily filled with a round glass orb,
whose nature could be detected at a glance; this seemed to stare at you
with a dull, searching look and take mental and disparaging stock of
your person, while the sound eye was winking and blinking at you as
jovially as you please.

Shuffler was affable enough to me, as usual, in despite of Lady Dasher
having such a bad opinion of his manners; but, he could give me no
information such as I wanted to hear. Everybody, really, appeared to be
as cautious as "Non mi recordo" was on Queen Caroline's trial. Nobody
had heard of anybody coming to our neighbourhood. Nobody had seen any
strange faces about. Nobody knew anything!

It was quite vexatious.

I haunted the Prebend's Walk. I went to church three times every
Sunday, but did not meet her. The only thing I had to assure me that it
was not all a dream, and that I had really seen her, was the little
spray of mignonette, which I carried next my heart.

It was now July.

Sultry August came and passed; dull September followed suit; dreary
October ensued, in the natural cycle of the seasons; foggy, suicidal
November came; and yet, _she_ came not!

I felt almost weary of waiting and looking out and longing,
notwithstanding the inward assurance I had, and the fact of my whole
nature being imbued with the belief that we should meet again. We
_must_ meet. I knew _that_, I felt firmly convinced of it.

Thus the year wore on. Weeks and months elapsed since our meeting in
church, which I should never, never forget.

Dreary, dreary expectation! I lost interest regarding things in which I
had formerly been interested. The society of people which I had
previously coveted became distasteful to me.

Lady Dasher, you may be sure, I never went nigh; _she_ would have
altogether overwhelmed me.

As for that insufferable ass, Horner, he was always asking me whenever
we met, which was much oftener than I cared about, with a provoking
simper and his unmeaning, eye-glass stare and drawling voice--coupled
with a tone of would-be-facetious irony--"Bai-ey Je-ove! I say, old
fellah, seen