CHAPTER TWO.
MANOEUVRING.
O! slippery state of things.

What sudden turns, What strange vicissitudes in the first leaf Of man's sad history.

To-day most happy, And ere to-morrow's sun has set, most abject! How scant the space between these vast extremes.
The recollection of my strange visions which, I confess, somewhat affected me on my first waking, I put off from me at once.

What were they, after all, but dreams, "begot of nothing but vain fantasy ?" I reasoned thus, philosophically, reflectively, rationally, within myself, as I dressed.
I determined to dismiss the matter from my thought at once; for, even if it prognosticated anything and was intended to withdraw the veil from futurity, it ought only to convince me of one fact, or fancy, namely, that, notwithstanding that I might have a hard struggle to win my darling, I should win her in the end:--that, also, in spite of antagonistic mammas and contrary circumstances, she would then be my own, my very own Min! Would you not have thought the same in a like case?
I trow, yes! I will not deny that I expended the most elaborate pains on my toilet that afternoon, before waiting upon Mrs Clyde in accordance with my promise to Min.

I did not otherwise comply fully with the essential requirements of Madame la Comtesse de Bassanville's _Code Complet du Ceremonial_--such as causing an influential friend, who could speak of my morals and position, to have a previous audience with "the responsible relation" of "the young person who had attracted my notice;" nor, did I don a pair of "light fresh-butter-coloured kid gloves." Still, I undoubtedly betrayed a considerable nicety of apparel all the same.
Indeed, I absolutely out-Hornered Horner; and, had anybody detected me when engaged in the mysteries of the dressing-room, I would certainly have been supposed to have been as anxiously considerate respecting the choice I should make between light trousers and dark, a black coat and a blue one, and whether I would wear a white waistcoat or not, as a young lady costuming herself for a ball, and debating with her maid the rival merits of blush roses and pink silk, or of white tarlatan and clematis.
It was, also, some time ere I could summon up enough resolution to knock at the door of Mrs Clyde's residence, when, my decorative preparations accomplished, I at length succeeded in getting round to her house.
The expedition strangely reminded me of a visit I was once forced to pay to a dentist, owing to the misdeeds of one of my best molars; the dread of the impending interview almost inducing me to turn back on the threshold and put off my painful purpose for a while--even as had been my course of procedure when calling at Signor Odonto's agonising establishment.