with full powers about the Hatti Homayoum, as
the world shall see in good time."

"Do you take your tea strong?" asked she;
and there was something so odd and so inopportune
in the question, that I felt it as a sort of
covert sneer; but when I looked up and beheld
that pale and gentle face turned towards me, I
banished the base suspicion, and forgetting all
my enthusiasm, said,

"Yes, dearest; strong as brandy!"

She tried to look grave, perhaps angry; but
in spite of herself, she burst out a laughing.

"I perceive, sir," said she, "that Mrs. Keats
was quite correct when she said that you appear
to have moments in which you are unaware of
what you say."

Before I could rally to reply, she had poured
out a cup of tea for Mrs. Keats, and left the
room to carry it to her.

"'Moments in which I am unaware of what
I say'—'incoherent intervals' Forbes Winslow
would call them: in plain English, I am mad.
Old woman, have you dared to cast such an
aspersion on me, and to disparage me, too, in the
quarter where I am striving to achieve success?
For her opinion of me I am less than indifferent;
for her judgment of my capacity, my morals, my
manners, I am as careless as I well can be of
anything; but these become serious disparagements
when they reach the ears of one whose
heart I would make my own. I will insist on
an explanation—no, but an apology—for this.
She shall declare that she used these words in
some non-natural sense—that I am the sanest
of mortals; she shall give it under her hand
and seal: 'I, the undersigned, having in a
moment of rash and impatient judgment,
imputed to the bearer of this document, Algernon
Sydney Potts'——No, 'Pottinger—'ha, there
is a difficulty! If I be Pottinger, I can never
re-become Potts; if Potts, I am lost—or,
rather, Miss Herbert is lost to me for ever. What
a dire embarrassment! Not to mention that in
the passport I was Ponto!"

"Mrs. Keats desired me to beg you will step
up to her room after breakfast, and bring your
account-books with you." This was said by
Miss Herbert as she entered and took her place
at the table.

"What has the old lady got in her head?"
said I, angrily. "I have no account-books—I
never had such in my life. When I travel alone,
I say to my courier, 'Diomede'—he is a Greek
—'Diomede, pay;' and he pays. When
Diomede is not with me, I ask, 'How much?' and I
give it."

"It certainly simplifies travel," said she,
gravely.

"It does more, Miss Herbert: it
accomplishes the end of travel. Your doctor says,
'Go abroad—take a holiday—turn your back on
Downing-street, and bid farewell to cabinet
councils.' Where is the benefit of such a course,
I ask, if you are to pass the vacation cursing
custom-house officers, bullying landlords, and
browbeating waiters? I say always, 'Give me a
bad dinner if you must, but do not derange my
digestion; rather a damp bed than thorns in the
pillow.'"

"I am to say that you will see her, however,"
said she, with that matter-of-fact adhesiveness
to the question that never would permit her to
join me in my digressions.

"That I go under protest, Miss Herbert—
under protest, and, as the lawyers say, without
prejudice—that is, that I go as a private gentleman,
irresponsible and independent. Tell her
this, and say, I know nothing of figures: arithmetic
may suit the Board of Trade; in the Foreign
Department we ignore it. You may add, too,
if you like, that from what you have seen of me,
I am of a haughty disposition, easily offended,
and very vindictive—very!"

"But I really don't think this," said she, with
a bewitching smile.

"Not to you, de——" I was nearly in it
again: "not to you" said I, stammering and
blushing till I felt on fire. I suspect that she
saw all the peril of the moment, for she left the
room hurriedly, on the pretext of asking Mrs.
Keats to take more tea.

"She is sensible of your devotion, Potts;
but is she touched by it? Has she said to
herself, 'That man is my fate, my destiny—it is
no use resisting him; dark and mysterious as he
is, I am drawn towards him by an inscrutable
sympathy'—or is she still struggling in the toils,
muttering to her heart to be still, and to wait?
Flutter away, gentle creature," said I,
compassionately, "but ruffle not your lovely plumage
too roughly; the bars of your cage are not the
less impassable that they are invisible. You
shall love me, and you shall be mine!"

To these rapturous fancies there now
succeeded the far less captivating thought of Mrs.
Keats, and an approaching interview. Can any
reader explain why it is that one sits in quiet
admiration of some old woman by Teniers or
Holbein, and never experiences any chagrin or
impatience at trials which, if only represented
in life, would be positively odious? Why is it
that art transcends nature, and that ugliness in
canvas is more endurable than ugliness in the
flesh? Now, for my own part, I'd rather
have faced a whole gallery of the Dutch school,
from Van Eyck to Verhagen, than have
confronted that one old lady who sat awaiting me
in No. 12.

Twice as I sat at my breakfast did François
put in his head, look at me, and retire without
a word. "What is the matter? What do you
mean?" cried I, impatiently, at the third intrusion.

"It is madam that wishes to know when
monsieur will be at leisure to go up-stairs to
her."

I almost bounded on my chair with passion.
How was I, I would ask, to maintain any
portion of that dignity with which I ought to
surround myself if exposed to such demands as
this? This absurd old woman would tear off
every illusion in which I draped myself. What
availed all the romance a rich fancy could
conjure up, when that wicked old enchantress called