usual quantity of wine, entered thoroughly into the passing joyousness
of the hour. What a _recherché_, luxurious extravagant little dinner it
was, that evening at the Maison Dorée! We had a charming little room
overlooking the Boulevard, furnished with as much looking-glass,
crimson-velvet, gilding, and arabesque painting as could be got together
within the space of twelve-feet by eight. Our wine came to table in a
silver cooler that Cellini might have wrought. Our meats were served
upon porcelain that would have driven Palissy to despair. We had nothing
that was in season, except game, and everything that was out; which,
by-the-way, appears to be our modern criterion of excellence with
respect to a dinner. Finally, we were waited upon by the most imposing
of waiters--a waiter whose imperturbable gravity was not to be shaken by
any amount of provocation, and whose neckcloth alone was sufficient to
qualify him for the church.

How merry we were! How Müller tormented that diplomatic waiter! What
stories we told! what puns we made! What brilliant things we said, or
fancied we said, over our Chambertin and Johannisberger! Müller knew
nothing of the substratum of sadness underlying all that jollity. He
little thought how heavy Dalrymple's strong heart had been that morning.
He had no idea that my friend and I were to part on the morrow, for
months or years, as the case might be--he to carry his unrest hither and
thither through distant lands; I to remain alone in a strange city,
pursuing a distasteful study, and toiling onward to a future without
fascination or hope. But, as the glass seals tell us, "such is life." We
are all mysteries to one another. The pleasant fellow whom I invite to
dinner because he amuses me, carries a scar on his soul which it would
frighten me to see; and he in turn, when he praises my claret, little
dreams of the carking care that poisons it upon my palate, and robs it
of all its aroma. Perhaps the laughter-loving painter himself had his