I was sitting one night in this state of general
fracture at my lonely chambers, when my friend
Twentyman burst in. He, too, was reading for
the Bar ; but not as I was reading. He danced
and sang. He had come on an errand of charity.
He had heard of the break down, and found
me with all the broken pieces about me : he
pitied me.

"Blushman, my boy," he said, " what's all
this? Never mind; you must come with me.
A little in the dumps? Never mind, I have
got a notion that I will soon put you straight."

Put me straight — put straight what was
broken down. I smiled at the notion, but
waved to him to proceed.

"You must come with me," he said. "I
have a scheme. I am going to-night to the
Strongbows, out to Triton Villas. You don't
know the Strongbows; I do."

I did not see how this concerned me, and was
about to interrupt him with what is called in our
legal dialect a demurrer, when he stopped me.

"You must come with me," he said. " You
must know the Strongbows; you must go out
to Triton Villas."

This was more pertinent, so I withdrew my
demurrer, and substituted what is called — still
in our legal jargon — a traverse.

"Impossible,"! said. "Graver matters
engross me. It was not thus that a Scarlett, a
Ffollett — a Sir William Ffollett, I mean——"

"I know," he said, "exactly. But as a
favour — a particular favour, old friend—oblige;
never have asked you for anything." (This was
scarcely consistent with truth; yet I did not
allude to a trifling loan, barely three weeks old.)
"Do, do, do now."

In short, I weakly consented. I gave way.
I bound myself to go out to the Strongbows,
positively for one night only, as I think I have
seen it in some public notices. As he was going
out, he said thoughtfully, " We can join in a
cab, you know; that will just do;" and went
his way.

At night he came, and we did join in a cab—
at least as far as mere occupancy went; but, in
a more figurative and fiscal sense, I might be
considered the sole tenant. My friend had
forgotten his purse — unfortunately, as I considered
it: I had brought mine— fortunately, as he
considered it. We entered the Triton Villas, the
home of the Strongbows.

It was a party. The house was not to say
large: on oath, I should adhere to the statement
that it was small. It stood by itself in a
little garden, and, being lit up, looked like a
square card lantern. There was a small hall,
where hats and coats were shovelled up together
in a mound of wearing apparel. Sounds of feeble
pianoforte playing issued from the room.

We entered. I was made known to the
hostess by my friend, who straight cut the social
painter — I believe that is the nautical term—
that joined him to me, and stood out himself to
sea. I scarcely saw him again that night, and
I now divined the sordid motives that had
prompted him to solicit my company. And as
this reflection occurred to me, I suddenly saw
close beside me a miracle of strength, symmetry,
and beauty — that is, a miracle of female strength,
symmetry, and beauty.

I was amazed. She overpowered me with
her presence. Such a form! More a hint than
a positive manifestation of secret strength; yet
nothing out of proportion. Athletic is scarcely
the word; stoutness suggests itself with horrible
indelicacy; and yet it is miles away from the
truth. A coarse mind would say extra stout:
but I have my own ideal, and she reached to it.
Six feet of beauty, yet in proportion. A
corresponding breadth of person was only harmony.
Everything reached to my ideal. She was tall,
graceful, strong, matchless, superb, lithe. Ah!
at last there is the word. Lithe she was, and I
was introduced to her.

Why linger over the earlier stages of that
passion? The whole of that evening I played
and eddied around her like the waters about
the foot of the great Bass Rock. I looked
up and measured her with admiration. I
spoke with her, and to my joy found she too
had an ideal of secret strength and poetical
muscularity. She candidly told me that I
did not reach to that ideal, and my heart
sank; but she saw, she said, that I could
admire the same ideal, which was the next best
thing, and my heart rose again. We presently
understood each other, and she took me into
confidence. She was amused at my unrestrained
and almost childish admiration. She told me
many things that night (on the stairs). How
she loved tales of daring deeds; of her hero
who, with a single stroke of his keen falchion,
cleft a sheep whole; of her second hero, who
wrestled with a lion on the savage desert; of
her third hero, who had pulled down a tree with
his single arm; of her heroes in general, whom
she loved to go and see at circuses, lying
upon their backs upon a carpet, cast their
offspring into the air, and catch them skilfully on
the soles of their feet. I told her of the athletic
man I had once seen, who threw fifty half-hundred
weights in succession over his head, as
though they had been feathers. She eagerly
broke in and asked me had I ever seen Herr
Botz, the German professor, who lifted an
ordinary stone weight with his little finger.
We grew enthusiastic with our mutual
confidences. "I will tell you a secret," she said,
"as you are the only one I ever met that
understands me. Mamma and papa know nothing of
it. They would — kill me if they did."

I smiled at this pardonable little exaggeration
of filial reverence. Papa and mamma were a
little man and a little woman, of wretched
muscular development. But my noble girl, as I
may call her, felt that no muscular charms of
person ought to emancipate her from parental
control. '''Yes," I said, eagerly, " do tell me.
I love to hear those things,"

"Well," she said, bending down her —— may
I call them massive? Yes, massive shoulders.
" No," she said, raising her massive shoulders,
" no, I couldn't tell you. You will laugh."