course it's she—feeble assent from the voice
within. Why who else, I should like to
know, has that compact little figure, that
charming turn of the head? But I'll go
down, I thought, and get close up to her, and
very soon settle all this. The flavour of the
clarinet got fearfully strong as I worked
my way nearer to her, for she was dancing
close to the music; but I persevered, and sat
down upon a bench a few paces from her.
Will it be believed that I was getting more
confused about this question of identity every
moment? Will it be believed that, the dance
over, when I went up to the end of the room
where the refreshments were served, when I
sat down and drank my ginger-beer, and
when she came and sat down with her
partner close by me, and also drank ginger-
beer, that I was still uncertain? Will it be
believed, that when her partner got up and
left her, and when she had turned to me and
asked me, in a hesitating manner and calling
me Sir, "if I did not intend to dance," that
I had only got so far as to admit that it
might be faintly and remotely possible that
she might be Miss Fenton's sister? Indeed,
it was only when the young lady, having now
broken the ice, proceeded to inform me that
she should be very happy to provide me with
a ticket for a ball which she was going to give
at the rooms we were in on the following
Tuesday,—it was only when she handed
me the card in question, (by glancing at
which I learnt that I was in conversation
with Miss Lisetta Scrope), that I began to
perceive that she was not even, except in the
feeblest degree, like Miss Fenton, and that
any one disposed to take the most charitable
view of her personal appearance, would not
be able to pronounce her more than nice-
looking.

And now I found what a sagacious voice
that was within me which had objected to
Miss Lisetta from the first, and protested
against her, and that that protester, who had
continually said, "Don't be in a hurry—
don't espouse that opinion too hastily; keep
your judgment cool, my boy," was, as he
always is, completely in the right.

I attribute this delusion partly to a certain
resemblance in height and figure which Miss
Lisetta certainly bore to my unattainable
beauty, but much more to a pre-determination
on my part that Miss Fenton was to be,
and must be, at those rooms that night.

One thing, at any rate, I learnt from the
professoress, (for such she turned out to
be), in return for my ticket; this was, that
Mr. Fenton was extremely particular about
his daughter, kept her wonderfully in the
back-ground, and seldom or never allowed her
to appear at the rooms in Angel Street.

"So much the better," I thought: and
indeed everything I heard about the young
lady increased my admiration, and confirmed
my resolution to pursue the adventure; but
how the deuce was I to get at her?

There was nothing left now but what I
had kept for the last resource. "Six private
lessons for a guinea," was at the foot of the
professor's advertisements. 'Twas a large
sum for a poor devil of a newspaper reporter;
but I was determined to manage it somehow.
The treacherous villain that I felt, and the
arch impostor, when walking up to
Professor F., I said, that I wished to have some
private lessons in waltzing, if he could tell
me at what time it would suit him to initiate
me! I knew pretty well what my engagements
would be next week, and managed to
dovetail them into the professor's
arrangement.

My scheme was a simple one, but
immensely deep. I intended to appear very
stupid and ignorant in all matters connected
with dancing, at first,—but suddenly, under
the professor's tuition, to improve; and,
having thus gratified his vanity by showing
what an able professor he was, I proposed
that at the last lesson or two there should be
little left for me to learn, and that I should
express my wish to practise with a partner.
Then it was my hope that he would propose
(seeing me to be a well-conducted young
man, and a pupil who did him credit) that
I should have an hour devoted to revolving
round the angel in Room Street—I mean the
room in Angel Street—with his daughter,
who should come there for that purpose by
his permission. I knew that this was not a
wholly absurd hope, having once before been
provided with a partner on a similar occasion
by a similar professor.

"Well," you ask, "and, this done, are you
any nearer your object? The lesson over,
will not Miss Fenton retire, and leave you
where you were? It is a pretty plan," you
add, "as far as it goes, but it does not go far
enough." To all which carping and offensive
remarks, I respond, that human foresight
doth not extend beyond a certain point; that
I leave the rest to chance, and that, at least,
in the event of my project succeeding, I
shall see her; and that see her I must, and
will.

My artfulness, in this case, does me
yeoman's service. I am at first ignorant, but of
an inquiring and teachable character. The
Professor shows me the step again and again
before I can make anything of it,—twisting
himself round and round the room, with a
kit in his hand, and looking (if he had not
been Miss Fenton's papa) uncommonly like
an ass. Then I twist myself round the room,
without the kit, but also looking like an ass.
She is not there to see me, so I don't care. I
make plenty of mistakes at first, and the
Professor is even a little disposed to be
irritable. In the second lesson, however, I
improve, and then get on so rapidly, that at
the termination of the fourth interview,
there seems really little left for me to learn,
and, with a quickened pulse, I put in my
momentous remark about the immense