'Elegy on the Ruins of an Ancient Castle.' Miss Ashburton became
nationally enthusiastic, and said she should like very much to see the
poem. Her wish was usually my law, but the translation of the other
song being in my pocket, I was obliged to palm it off upon her; and
after conceding that Matthisson had written his 'Elegy' with unwonted
inspiration, I sailed in upon that tide of feeling--with a slight
inconsequence, to be sure--and declaimed my version from Salis. Miss
Ashburton, sir, was obliged to turn away to hide her tears."

"I used to hear from my uncle of your attachment," said Sylvester,
with his politest air of condolence, "and I assure you my opinion ever
has been that your feelings did you honor. Nothing, in my view, is so
becoming to gray hairs and the evening of life as fidelity to a first
passion."

"Lord forgive you, Berkley!" I exclaimed, startled out of all
self-possession by his impertinence. "What on earth do you mean? You
are completely ignorant of what you are talking about. I have hardly
any gray hairs, and some excellent constitutions are gray at thirty.
You are partly bald yourself: I know it from the way you turn up your
love-locks. And it was not Miss Ashburton I was talking about. That
is, if I did derive my reminiscences from her, it was with an object
of a very different character at the end of the perspective. I have
adopted other views; that is, I have lately had presented to my
mind--"

[Illustration: "KELLNER!"]

With these rhetorical somersaults, like the flappings of a carp upon
the straw, did I express the mental distractions I was suffering