with wretched patches of waste land, half built over. Unfinished
streets, unfinished crescents, unfinished squares, unfinished shops,
unfinished gardens, surrounded us. At last they stopped at a new
square, and rang the bell at one of the newest of the new houses. The
door was opened, and she and her companion disappeared. The house was
partly detached. It bore no number; but was distinguished as North
Villa. The square--unfinished like everything else in the
neighbourhood--was called Hollyoake Square.

I noticed nothing else about the place at that time. Its newness and
desolateness of appearance revolted me, just then. I had satisfied
myself about the locality of the house, and I knew that it was her
home; for I had approached sufficiently near, when the door was
opened, to hear her inquire if anybody had called in her absence. For
the present, this was enough. My sensations wanted repose; my thoughts
wanted collecting. I left Hollyoake Square at once, and walked into
the Regent's Park, the northern portion of which was close at hand.

Was I in love?--in love with a girl whom I had accidentally met in an
omnibus? Or, was I merely indulging a momentary caprice--merely
feeling a young man's hot, hasty admiration for a beautiful face?
These were questions which I could not then decide. My ideas were in
utter confusion, all my thoughts ran astray. I walked on, dreaming in
full day--I had no distinct impressions, except of the stranger beauty
whom I had just seen. The more I tried to collect myself, to resume
the easy, equable feelings with which I had set forth in the morning,
the less self-possessed I became. There are two emergencies in which
the wisest man may try to reason himself back from impulse to
principle; and try in vain:--the one when a woman has attracted him
for the first time; the other, when, for the first time, also, she has