Thus, in manual toil, yet mental comfort, had passed a week, when one morning, while the usual commissioner for carrying about goods happened to be out of the way, a lady from Soho Square sent, in great haste, an order for some ribbons. Juliet, to save a customer to her friend, proposed supplying the commissioner’s place; and set forth for that purpose, with a little band-box in her hands, and a large black bonnet drawn over her eyes. But before she reached the square, she overtook two men who were loitering on, as leisurely as she was tripping diligently, and the words, ‘You’ll never know her again, I promise you; she’s turned out quite a beauty!’ struck her ears, from a voice which she recollected to be that of Mr Riley.

Anxious to avoid being recognized by him, she crossed to the other side of the street, with a precipitance that caused the cover of her band-box, which she had neglected to fasten, to slip aside, and most of her stores to roll in the dust.

While, with great dismay, she sought to recover them, a feeble, but eager voice, from a carriage, which suddenly stopt, ordered a footman to descend and assist the young lady.

Not without confusion, Juliet perceived to whom she owed so uncommon a civility; it was to her old friend and admirer Sir Jaspar Herrington. She collected her merchandize, courtsied her thanks, but looked another way, and hurried back to her new home.

She related her adventure to Gabriella, with whom she bemoaned the mischief that had befallen the ribbons; and who now determined to spare her friend any further hazard of unwelcome encounters, by carrying herself what yet remained unsoiled of the pieces, to Soho Square.

Juliet had barely time to install herself as mistress of the small warehouse, when she saw, through the window, the carriage of Sir Jaspar; at the same time, that a young woman opened the shop-door, and demanded a drachm of black sewing silk, and a yard of tape.

While Juliet with difficulty found, and with embarrassment prepared to weigh the first, and to measure the second, the Baronet, with a curious, but respectful air, entering, and hobbling towards the counter, desired to look at some ribbons.

Juliet, however vexed, could not refrain from smiling; but, through confusion, joined to the novelty of her office, she doubled the weight of her silk, and the measure of her tape, yet forgot to ask to be paid for either; and her customer, whether from similar forgetfulness, or from reluctance to mark the new shop-keeper’s ignorance of business, walked off without seeming to notice this inattention.

Sir Jaspar, then, gravely repeated his request to be shewn some ribbons.

Juliet began now to hope that she had not been recollected by the Baronet. Shading her face, therefore, still lower with her large bonnet, she produced a drawer of black ribbons; concluding that what he required must be for his queue, or for his shoe-strings.

No, he said, black would not do: the colour that he wanted was brown.

In a low voice that strove to disguise itself, she answered that she had no other colour at home.

He would stay till some other were returned, then, he said; and, composedly seating himself, and taking out his snuff-box, he added, that he did not want plain brown ribbons, but ribbons speckled, spotted, or splashed with brown.

Juliet who could now no longer doubt being known to him, made no reply; though again, irresistibly, she smiled.

To the Baronet her smile was always enchantment; setting aside, therefore, any further pretence to strangeness, he leant his hands upon the counter, and peering archly under her bonnet, said, ”Tis you, indeed, then, sweet sorceress? And what sylph is it,—or what imp?—dulcet, or malignant!—that has drawn me again into the witchery of your charms?’

He then poured forth countless enquiries into her situation, her projects, and her sentiments; but, all proving fruitless, he pathetically lamented the luckless meeting; and frankly owned, that he had brought himself to a resolution of seeing her no more. ‘The rude assault,’ said he, ‘made upon my feelings by those mundane harpies at Arundelcastle, removed a bandage from “my mind’s eye” that had veiled me to myself, and shewed me that I was an old fool caught in the delusions of love and beauty! I could parry no raillery, I could brave no suspicion, I could retort no sneer! Panic-struck and disordered, I stole away, like a gentle Philander of Arcadia, my head drooping upon my left shoulder, my eyes cast down upon the ground, with every love-born symptom,—except youth, which alone offers their apology! I spent the rest of the day in character with this opening; mute with my servants; loquacious in soliloquy; quarrelling with my books; and neglecting my dinner! Sleepless and sighing, I repaired to my solitary couch; lost to every idea of existence, but what pointed out to me how, when, and where I might again behold my lovely enchantress. Shall I tell you how it was I recovered, at last, my senses?’

‘If you think the lesson may be useful to me, Sir Jaspar!—’

‘Ah, cruel! “He jests at scars who never felt a wound”. Mark, however, the visions by which I have been tutored. The servants gone, the lights removed, and the world’s bustle superseded by stillness, darkness, and solitude,—then, when my fancy meant to revel in smiles, dimples, sweet looks, and recreative wiles, then,—what a transformation from hope and enjoyment, to shame and derision! I no sooner closed my poor eyes, than an hundred little imps of darkness scrambled up my pillow. How was I tweaked, jirked, and jolted! Mumbled, jumbled, and pinched! Some of them encircled my eye-balls, holding mirrours in each hand. They spoke not; the mirrours were all eloquent! You think, they expressed, of a young girl? Behold here what a young girl must think of you! Others jammed my lean, lank arms into a machine of whale-bone, to strength and invigorate them for offering support, in cases of difficulty or danger, to my fair one: others fastened elastic strings to my withered neck and shoulders, to enable me, by little pulleys, to raise my head, after every obsequious reverence to my goddess. Crowds of the nimblest footed dived their little forked fingers into my heart, plucking up by the root sober contentment and propriety; and pummelling into their places restlessness, jealousy, and suspicion: mocking me when they had done, by peeping into my ears, and squeaking out, with merry tittering, See! see! see! what sickly rubbish the old dotard has got in his crazy noddle!’

Juliet again smiled, but so faintly, from uncertainty to what this fantastic gallantry might tend, that Sir Jaspar, looking at her with concern, said,

‘How’s this, my dainty Ariel? Why so serious a brow? Have some of my nocturnal visitants whisked themselves through the key-hole of your chamber-door, also? And have they tormented your fancy with waking visions of fearful omens? Spurn them all! sweet syren! What can the tricks and malice of hobgoblins, or even the freaks and vagaries of fortune itself, enact against youth, beauty, and health such as yours? Give me but such arms, and I will brave the wayward sisters themselves.’

More seriously, then, ‘Alas!’ he cried, ‘what is it, thus mystic, yet thus attractive, that allures me whether I will or not into your chains?—Could I but tell who, or what you are,—besides being an angel,—it is possible there might occur some idea,—some—some little notion of means to exorcise the wicked familiars that severally annoy us. Tell me but under what semblance the pigmy enemies invade you? Whether, as usual, with the darts of Master Cupid, shot, furiously, into your snowy bosom, or—’

‘No, no, no!’

‘Or whether by the bags of Plutus, emptied, furtively, from your strong box? In the first case,—little as my bosom is snowy!—I should but too well know how to pity; in the second, I should be proud and honoured to serve you. Tell me, then, who you are, resistless paragon! and you shall wander no more in the nameless state, an exquisite, but nearly visionary being! Tell me but who you are, and I will protect you, myself, with my life and fortune!’

Alarmed by this warmth, and doubtful whether it demanded gratitude or resentment, Juliet was silent.

‘If you will not reveal to me your history,’ he resumed, ‘you will, at least, not refuse to let me divine it? I am a famous star-gazer; and, if once I can discover your ruling planet, I shall prognosticate your destiny in a second. Let me, then, read the lines of your face. Nay! you must not hide it! You must give me fair play. Or, shall I examine the palm of your hand?’

Juliet laughed, but drew on her gloves.

‘O you little Tyrant! I must only, then, catch, as I can, a glimpse of your countenance; A nauseous task, enough, to dwell on any thing so ugly! All I can make out from it, just now, is the figure of a coronet.’

‘A coronet?’

‘Yes; under which I perceive the cypher D. Do you know any thing of any nobleman whose name begins with a D? I cannot decipher the rest of the letters, except that the last is—I think, an h.’

Juliet started.

‘My art, I must, however, own, is at a stand, to discover whether this nobleman may be a lover or a kinsman. To discern that, the general lines of the face are inadequate. I must investigate the eyes.’

Juliet pertinaciously looked down.

‘How now, my dainty, Ariel? Will you give me no answer? neither verbal nor visual? Will you not even tell me whether I must try to make the old peer my advocate, or whether I must run him through the body? Surely you won’t let me court him as of kin if he be a rival? nor pink him as a rival if he be of kin?

‘He is neither, I can assure you, Sir: he is nothing to me whatsoever.’

‘You know, at least, then, it seems, whom I mean?’

‘Sir?’

‘My tiny elves have not here deluded me? I am always afraid lest those merry little wags should be playing me some prank. But it is you who are the wicked Will o’ the Wisp, that lures all others, yet never can be lured yourself! Lord Denmeath has really, then, and in sober truth, the happiness of some way belonging to you?’

‘No, Sir;—you mistake me;—I never—’ She left her phrase unfinished.

‘Shall I relate what the prattling tell-tales have blabbed to me further? They pretend that Lord Denmeath ought himself to be your protector; but that he is so void of taste, so empty of sentiment, that he seeks to disguise, if not disown, an affinity that, with more liberal ideas, he would exult in as an honour.’

‘Who talked of affinity, Sir?’ cried Juliet, with quickness irrepressible.—

‘Was it Lord Denmeath?—Did he name me to you?’

‘Name you? Has any one named you? Indefinable, unconquerable, unfathomable Incognita! Has any one presumed to give you a human genealogy? Are you not straight descended from the clouds? without even taking the time to change yourself first into a mortal? Explain, expound, unravel to me, in soft pity—’

Juliet solemnly entreated him to forbear any further interrogatory, assuring him that all enquiry gave her pain.

‘Then shall “the stars,”’ cried he, ‘“fade away, the sun grow dim, and nature,”—like my poor old carcass!—“sink in years,” ere one grain more of the favourite attribute of our general mother shall be sown in my discourse! But you, in all things marvellous! You! have you really, and bona fide, so little in your composition of our nau............