occasion when she forgot to remove it), my costume had reached,
at last, great sympathies for the shade of Praxiteles, feeling
the same melancholy over original intentions so far
misrepresented by renewals.

Therefore I determined to preserve my fineries to the uttermost;
and it was fortunate that I did so; because, after dining, for
three nights upon nothing but looking out of my window, the
fourth morning brought me a letter from my English friend. I had
written to him, asking if he knew of any people who wished to
pay a salary to a young man who knew how to do nothing. I place
his reply in direct annexation:

"Henrietta Street, Cavendish Square, May 14.

"My dear Ansolini,--Why haven't you made some of your
relatives do something? I understand that they do not like you;
neither do my own, but after our crupper at Monte Carlo what
could mine do, except provide? If a few pounds (precious few, I
fear!) be of any service to you, let me know. In the mean time,
if you are serious about a position, I may, preposterously
enough, set you in the way of it. There is an old thundering
Yankee here, whom I met in the States, and who believed me a god
because I am the nephew of my awful uncle, for whose career he
has ever had, it appears, a life-long admiration, sir! Now, by
chance, meeting this person in the street, it developed that he
had need of a man, precisely such a one as you are not: a sober,
tutorish, middle-aged, dissenting parson, to trot about the
Continent tied to a dancing bear. It is the old gentleman's cub,
who is a species of Caliban in fine linen, and who has taken a