Mrs.
Newsome wore, at operatic hours, a black silk dress--very handsome, he knew it was "handsome"-- and an ornament that his memory was able further to identify as a ruche.

He had his association indeed with the ruche, but it was rather imperfectly romantic.

He had once said to the wearer--and it was as "free" a remark as he had ever made to her--that she looked, with her ruff and other matters, like Queen Elizabeth; and it had after this in truth been his fancy that, as a consequence of that tenderness and an acceptance of the idea, the form of this special tribute to the "frill" had grown slightly more marked.

The connexion, as he sat there and let his imagination roam, was to strike him as vaguely pathetic; but there it all was, and pathetic was doubtless in the conditions the best thing it could possibly be.

It had assuredly existed at any rate; for it seemed now to come over him that no gentleman of his age at Woollett could ever, to a lady of Mrs.
Newsome's, which was not much less than his, have embarked on such a simile.
All sorts of things in fact now seemed to come over him, comparatively few of which his chronicler can hope for space to mention.