I have spoken of these reminiscences as of a row of coloured beads, and I confess that as I continue to straighten out my chaplet I am rather proud of the comparison.

The beads are all there, as I said--they slip along the string in their small smooth roundness.

Geoffrey Dawling accepted as a gentleman the event his evening paper had proclaimed; in view of which I snatched a moment to nudge him a hint that he might offer Mrs.Meldrum his hand.

He returned me a heavy head-shake, and I judged that marriage would henceforth strike him very much as the traffic of the street may strike some poor incurable at the window of an hospital.

Circumstances arising at this time led to my making an absence from England, and circumstances already existing offered him a firm basis for similar action.