laughing to itself as it stepped back into enfolding space.

To this day I seem to see it, ever following with noiseless footsteps
man and woman, waiting patiently its opportunity to thrust its face
between them. So that I can read no love tale, but, glancing round, I
see its mocking eyes behind my shoulder, reading also, with a silent
laugh. So that never can I meet with boy and girl, whispering in the
twilight, but I see it lurking amid the half lights, just behind them,
creeping after them with stealthy tread, as hand in hand they pass me
in quiet ways.

Shall any of us escape, or lies the road of all through this dark
valley of the shadow of dead love? Is it Love's ordeal? testing the
feeble-hearted from the strong in faith, who shall find each other yet
again, the darkness passed?

Of the dinner itself, until time of dessert, I can give no consecutive
account, for as footman, under the orders of this enthusiastic
parlour-maid, my place was no sinecure, and but few opportunities of
observation through the crack of the door were afforded me. All that
was clear to me was that the chief guest was a Mr. Teidelmann--or
Tiedelmann, I cannot now remember which--a snuffy, mumbling old frump,
with whose name then, however, I was familiar by reason of seeing it
so often in huge letters, though with a Co. added, on dreary long
blank walls, bordering the Limehouse reach. He sat at my mother's
right hand; and I wondered, noticing him so ugly and so foolish
seeming, how she could be so interested in him, shouting much and
often to him; for added to his other disattractions he was very deaf,
which necessitated his putting his hand up to his ear at every other
observation made to him, crying querulously: "Eh, what? What are you