"Laugh," I said, wounded deeply: " do you
take me for one of those heartless circulating
things yonder, who have no feeling for the
beautiful, the strong, the—— ?"

"What is it, Captain Rideaboot?" she said,
sweetly to that officer, who was standing over
her. A chill passed athwart my heart like a
knife. Captain Rideaboot was a giant.
Miltonic in his proportions; Goliath in a dress-
suit. I hated and scorned him with a deep,
deadly, defiant, passionate scorn.

He took her away — took her to the dance.
With a horrible gnawing I marked their
progress. I had to own myself, with a frightful
pang, that they were suited. He was a
Patagonian, and yet, O yes, a graceful Patagonian.
There was, I owned it with a loud groan,
muscular poetry somewhere. They performed their
dance, and swept a road clear for themselves in the
little room. It was fine; like the great Miltonic
monster again, I trembled while compelled to
admire. It was over; but another creature, one
of the vertebrate order called a brother-officer,
came crawling up, and to him the man
Rideaboot handed her. Rideaboot then went his
way, mopping and fanning himself with his
hankerchief; for he suffered by exercise.

The other was a wretched thing; a mere
reptile, if I may be pardoned the noun. His
action was ungraceful; I could see she was
suffering agonies with him. It was soon over,
and then, after an interval, came—I declare yes
—that—that —beast (I must call him
something) — again offered his odious person for the
measure that was now about commencing;
and she, I grieve to say, yielded. And yet to
me, writhing in a corner, the sight was beautiful
to see, as they floated, rather surged, with a
gentle roll round the room. Other mere ordinary
dancing fry fell away from their path like waves
before a ship's keel. Going away, I caught her
for a moment. My friend had come to me an
hour before, and proposed with a strange
effrontery that we should again " join in a cab"
home. Following my massive charmer as she
floated by I agreed mechanically, and he had
gone out to secure a vehicle. That conveyance
had been retained now more than an hour, yet I
did not regard it. Strange to say, he did not;
though we were to "join."

I caught her for a moment in the moral sense
of the word. " Sit down," she said; " I want
to talk to you."

"You must tell me," I said, " this secret.
What is it like? Something large, grand,
stupendous."

"I can't," she said, smiling; "you would
laugh at my weakness, for a weakness it is."

A weakness in her! Physical? No. But I was
burning to know.

"Something that I am sadly addicted to,"
she said, with meaning, "and daren't tell you.
Good night; come and see me. You
understand me, I can see."

Perhaps I did. But with reference to that
Rideaboot, did he understand? — as well, or
perhaps better? "I should like," I said aloud,
"to have that uninformed beast here in this cab,
say under the seat."

"Hallo!" said my friend; " asleep, eh? How
did you like it, though? A little too small a
crib, eh?"

"Small!" I said, indignantly. " What do
you call large? What do you call symmetry?
What do you call massiveness, shape, outline,
proportions? I say," I continued, excitedly,
"what do you call these? You a judge?" I
added, derisively. " Talk of what you know—
pipes, bats, and the United Suffield Duffers.
There's your line."

He was scared at my manner, and did not
resume the subject. I waited for him with an
intellectual bludgeon raised to smash him if he
should; but he didn't.

"We shall go out there to-morrow," I said;
"you and I."

"I can't," he said. " I have an engagement."

"The Duffers, I suppose?" I said, scornfully.
"Put them off. I have no engagement. We
go."

He was again cowed. He agreed. We went
next day. We joined in a cab; but he
proposed it feebly.

We got to Triton Villas. We saw her. Papa,
mamma, and all the world, except a younger
sister, were out; and by a sudden and ferocious
look, I made him devote himself entirely to this
child of nature. The child took him presently
to show him her doll. We got on delightfully.
"But the secret," I said; "what you are
addicted to. Do, do, DO tell me."

"Ah, it is a vice," she said, with a sigh;
"an unwomanly vice. The world would point
at me if they knew. The mouth of an enemy,"
she added, prettily, " often steals away our
brains, you know."

Where had I heard that? " But this obscure
language," I said.

"It is growing on me every day," she said,
mournfully. " I am enslaved to it, and cannot
shake it off. If I told you, you would despise
me, and yet I mean well."

I was growing alarmed. These were phrases
usually applied to one species of human vice
the most degrading of our nature. Surely—
surely — in one so young, so grand, so noble—
ah! that was it. To keep that splendid system
well strung, who knows but that some
stimulating——

" I will give you a hint," she said, in a low
meaning voice, and looking round to see she
was not heard. " Dobbler has just sent me the
materials, and I have contrived to smuggle them
in"

At this moment her parents returned. We
went away; I in sorrow and grief, and a prey to
a thousand misgivings. " What," said I, as we
journeyed home in the cab we had joined in (I
mean that I had joined — I mean that he didn't
join in), "what is the popular quotation about
the mouth — an enemy stealing our brains ? "

"To drink," he replied, humbly; " to strong
drink indulged in to excess. And the accurate