seemed to change colour, and a good-sized, delicious mouth, with
teeth as white as milk. A man could not see her nose for her eyes
and mouth; her own sex could, and would have told us some nonsense
about it. She wore an unpretending grayish dress, buttoned to
the throat with lozenge-shaped buttons, and a Scottish shawl that
agreeably evaded colour. She was like a duck, so tight her plain
feathers fitted her, and there she sat, smooth, snug, and delicious,
with a book in her hand and a soupcon of her wrist just visible as
she held it. Her opposite neighbour was what I call a good style
of man, the more to his credit since he belonged to a corporation
that frequently turns out the worst imaginable style of young men.
He was a cavalry officer, aged twenty-five. He had a moustache,
but not a very repulsive one--not one of those subnasal pigtails on
which soup is suspended like dew on a shrub; it was short, thick,
and black as a coal. His teeth had not yet been turned by tobacco
smoke to the colour of juice; his clothes did not stick to nor
hang to him; he had an engaging smile, and, what I liked the dog
for, his vanity, which was inordinate, was in its proper place, his
heart, not in his face, jostling mine and other people's who have
none; in a word, he was what one oftener hears of than meets--a
young gentleman. He was conversing in an animated whisper with
a companion, a fellow-officer; they were talking about what it is
far better not to--women. Our friend clearly did not wish to be
overheard; for he cast ever and anon a furtive glance at his fair
vis-a-vis and lowered his voice. She seemed completely absorbed
in her book, and that reassured him. At last the two soldiers came
down to a whisper (the truth must be told); the one who got down
at Slough, and was lost to posterity, bet ten pounds to three that
he who was going down with us to Bath and immortality would not
kiss either of the ladies opposite upon the road. "Done, done!" Now