for her doll; and, from the sublime to the
ridiculous, there was, as usual, but one step. To
lavish boundless affection on an object which
was, to her, inanimate and unconscious; to pour
terms of affection into deaf ears, to mirror
herself in blind eyes, to gloat over breathless lips,
to cherish an image which, without, is only
paint, and varnish, and scraps of ribbon; and,
within, only rags and sawdust—this is what the
child does with her doll; and this is what Lily
Floris did with the idol of Edgar Greyfaunt
which she had built up in the comer of her soul.
A spruce Fetish, forsooth. A golden calf, or one
shining at least with the bravest Dutch metal.
A curled and oiled Mumbo-Jumbo; but she
worshipped it in secret, and with a devouring
adoration. Had she, in her dreary childhood,
been given more dolls to play with, she might
not, perhaps, have been so ready to fall in love
with the stalwart waxen puppet that was called
Edgar Greyfaunt.

Do you reproach her for falling in love at first
sight? Silly girls, at her age, and loving as she
did, usually do so. The prudent virgins are
vaccinated, and take the disorder slowly, and in the
mildest form; albeit, on them, often, in middle
life, the disease falls again with appalling
virulence, and kills them. The foolish virgins catch
the infection at once, and have it hot and strong;
and happy are those who get over it, and rise
again, cured, but scarred for life.

Besides, is there any love at first sight? One
doubts it. Is not the first fortuitous rencounter
with the object that is to be beloved, merely the
realisation of an ideal that has been nourished
in the heart for years? It seemed to Lily as
though she had always been thinking of Edgar
Greyfaunt ever since she was a child, and now
he had come. She had always loved, and would
always continue to love him.

Had there been two parties to this amorous
action, a third might have interposed in the suit.
An interpleader might have arisen, in the shape
of jealousy. Lily would have dreamt of a rival,
feared her, hated her perhaps; for as it is in the
power of Love to mollify and sweeten all evil
thoughts, so is it unhappily within his attributes
to turn all that is good into poison and
venom. But Lily was plaintiff, defendant,
counsel, attorney, judge, jury, usher, and
auditory all in one. She stated her own case, and
replied to herself. She summed up herself, and
herself gave the verdict, and herself delivered
the verdict. It was always to the same effect:
that she loved Edgar Greyfaunt.

But he, handsome, gifted, courted—did he
love, was he beloved by, another? Well; Lily
thought upon this sometimes, and trembled, and
her heart swooned within her. But she was not
always possessed by the thought. Love is so
far merciful, as not perpetually to insist on the
unknown eventuality. If the young who love in
secret suffered this torture of fear without
intermission, they would go out and drown
themselves. If a man of threescore years and ten,
who knows his end to be imminent, were always
dwelling upon death, he would never be able to
eat his dinner. Oblivion for the mind is as
necessary as rest for the body, and is as
beneficently meted out to us. Labour and
thought, without surcease, would be intolerable.

The spiteful magician Love has the art of
making all things appear as they are not; and
has been revelling in that trick ever since he
made the Fairy Queen enamoured of the weaver
clown that had the jackass's head instead of
his own clod pate. For thousands of years
before that, maybe, he worked the same rascally
spell. Love can transfer, transfuse, transmute,
conjure dry leaves into guineas, dress up the
daw in peacock's feathers, give the wolf sheep's
clothing; turn Christopher Sly into a duke,
the princess into a goose-girl, the pumpkin
into a coach and six, and the Beast into Prince
Azor; quite as often, believe me, the Beast
is a Beast to the end of the chapter, only Beauty
is stricken by Love with colour-blindness, and
mistakes rusty black for brightest crimson. To
Lily, Edgar Greyfaunt was at once (but it was
all conjuring) invested with the most lovable
attributes of the kind gentleman at Greenwich who
had sat by her side at the dinner, and kissed her
when she went away. Straightway she passed,
in an arbitrary little parliament, an act for
transferring stock; and under this act all the love
standing in the Million per Cents in the name of
William Long was handed over to Edgar
Greyfaunt. Then she piled Pelion upon Ossa; she
buttered the fat pig; she gilded the refined gold;
she smothered her idol with roses. She gave him
all the love she felt for the schoolmates who had
been kind to her; for the Bunnycastles; for the
good-hearted folks at Cutwig and Co.'s; for the
very courier on board the steamer who had treated
her with " joggolate." And lastly, she bestowed
upon the vacuous inane Fetish (ah! but he was
so beautiful!) all the immeasurable love she
should have felt for the parents who had
neglected and abandoned her. Was there none
left for Madame de Kergolay, for kindly Madame
Prudence, for the homely Babette, for the
cheery Vieux Sablons, for the good priest?
Well! there was gratitude, veneration; but,
what would you have? When the Houses of
Parliament are all ablaze, who thinks of the
chimney that has caught fire in a second floor
back in the Horseferry-road?

So much overwhelming overpowering love did
did she give the handsome Fetish, that he might
have staggered, and sunk under the weight. He
happened, however, to know nothing about it;
and had he known all about it, the handsome
brute would not have understood it.

But the fires of her love were well banked up.
The furious little furnace consumed its own
smoke. It found no vent in sighs and moans, in
confidences with women, in tender glances, in
passionate letters, in sickly poetry (the which
safety-valve has saved many estimable lads and
lasses from the commission of suicide; the chief