Mr. Softly, the new Secretary?  A worldly,
vain-glorious young man.  The last person in
England to promote the interests of our new
Institution."  Such was the counter-estimate
of me among the Puritan population.  I
report both opinions quite disinterestedly.
There is generally something to be said on
either side of every question; and, as for
me, I can always hold up the scales
impartially, even when my own character is the
substance weighing in them.  Readers of
ancient history need not be reminded, at this
time of day, that there may be Roman virtue
even in a Rogue.

The objects, interests, and general business
of the Duskydale Institution were matters
with which I never thought of troubling myself
on assuming the duties of secretary.  All
my energies were given to the arrangements
connected with the opening ball.  I was elected
by acclamation to the office of general
manager of the entertainments; and I did
my best to deserve the confidence reposed in
me; leaving literature and science, so far as I
was concerned, perfectly at liberty to advance
themselves or not, just as they liked.  Whatever
my colleagues may have done, after I
left them, nobody at Duskydale can accuse
me of having ever been accessory to the
disturbing of quiet people with useful
knowledge.  I took the arduous and universally
neglected duty of teaching the English people
how to be amused entirely on my own
shoulders, and left the easy and customary
business of making them miserable to others.
My unhappy countrymen! (and thrice
unhappy they of the poorer sort)—any man can
preach to them, lecture to them, and form
them into classes—but where is the man
who can get them to amuse themselves?
Anybody may cram their poor heads; but
who will brighten their grave faces?  Don't
read story-books, don't go to plays, don't
dance!  Finish your long day's work and
then intoxicate your minds with solid
history, revel in the too-attractive luxury of the
lecture-room, sink under the soft temptation
of classes for mutual instruction!  How
many potent, grave, and reverent tongues
discourse to the popular ear in these syren
strains, and how obediently and resignedly
this same weary popular ear listens!  What
if a bold man spring up one day, crying aloud
in our social wilderness,  "Play, for Heaven's
sake, or you will work yourselves into a
nation of automatons!  Shake a loose leg to a
lively fiddle!  Women of England! drag the
lecturer off the rostrum, and the male mutual
instructor out of the class, and ease their
poor addled heads of evenings by making them
dance and sing with you!  Accept no offer
from any man who cannot be proved, for a
year past, to have systematically lost his
dignity at least three times a week, after
office hours.  You, daughters of Eve, who have
that wholesome love of pleasure which is one
of the greatest adornments of the female
character, set up a society for the promotion
of universal amusement, and save the British
nation from the lamentable social
consequences of its own gravity!"  Imagine a
voice crying lustily after this fashion—what
sort of echoes would it find?—Groans?

I know what sort of echoes my voice
found.  They were so discouraging to me,
and to the frivolous minority of pleasure-
seekers, that I recommended lowering the
price of admission so as to suit the means of
any decent people who were willing to leave
off money-grubbing and tear themselves
from the charms of useful recreation for one
evening at least.  The proposition was
indignantly negatived by the managers of the
institution.  I am so singularly sanguine a
man that I was not to be depressed even by
this.  My next efforts to fill the ball-room
could not be blamed.  I procured a local
directory, put fifty tickets in my pocket,
dressed myself in nankeen pantaloons and a
sky-blue coat (then the height of fashion),
and set forth to tout for dancers among all the
members of the genteel population, who, not
being notorious Puritans, had also not been
so obliging as to take tickets for the ball.
There never was any pride or bashfulness
about me.  I stick at nothing; I am as easy
and even-tempered a Rogue as you have met
with anywhere since the days of Gil Blas.

My temperament being opposed to doing
anything with regularity, I opened the directory
at hazard, and determined to make my
first call at the first house that caught my
eye.  Vallombrosa Vale Cottages.  Number
One.  Doctor and Miss Knapton.  Very
good.  I have no preferences.  Let me sell
the first two tickets there.  I found the
place; I opened the garden gate; I tripped
up to the door with my accustomed buoyancy
and my sunny smile.  I never felt easier or
more careless; and yet, at that very moment,
I was rushing with headlong rapidity to
meet my fate.

What fate?

Fate in yellow muslin, with black hair
curling down to her waist, with large, soft,
melancholy brown eyes, with round dusky
cheeks, with nimble white fingers working a
silk purse, with a heavenly blush and a sad
smile fate, in short, by the name of Miss
Knapton.  Love takes various lengths of
time, I believe, to subjugate less impressionable
men than I am.  I have heard of certain
hard natures capable of holding out
against fascination for a week.  It is
incredible; but I will offend nobody by saying
that I do not believe it.  In my case, on my
word of honour as a gentleman and lover,
Miss Knapton subjugated me in less than
half-a-minute.  When I felt myself colouring
as I bowed to her, I knew that it was all
over with me.  I never blushed before in my
life.  What a very curious sensation it is!

I saw her wave her hand, and felt a greedy
longing to kiss it.  I heard her say sweetly