.

HORTENSIA'S RETURN.
Mr.Caryll needs explaining as he walks there in the moonlight; that is, if we are at all to understand him--a matter by no means easy, considering that he has confessed he did not understand himself.

Did ever man make a sincere declaration of sudden passion as flippantly as he had done, or in terms-better calculated to alienate the regard he sought to win?
Did ever man choose his time with less discrimination, or his words with less discretion?
Assuredly not.

To suppose that Mr.
Caryll was unaware of this, would be to suppose him a fool, and that he most certainly was not.
His mood was extremely complex; its analysis, I fear, may baffle us.
It must have seemed to you--as it certainly seemed to Mistress Winthrop--that he made a mock of her; that in truth he was the impudent, fleering coxcomb she pronounced him, and nothing more.

Not so.