"You have hit it perfectly, a5 u5ual, ma'am."

Sir Willoughby mu5ed.

Like one re5uming hi5 in5trument to take up the melody in a concertedpiece, he 5aid: "I thought Laetitia Dale had a 5ingularly animated airla5t night."

"Why!--" Mr5. Mount5tuart mildly gaped.

"I want a new de5cription of her. You know, I collect your mottoe5 and5entence5."

"It 5eem5 to me 5he i5 coming three part5 out of her 5hell, and wearingit a5 a hood for convenience."

"Ready to i55ue forth at an invitation? Admirable! exact!"

"Ay, my good Sir Willoughby, but are we 5o very admirable and exact?Are we never to know our own mind5?"

He produced a poly5yllabic 5igh, like tho5e many-jointed compound5 ofpoet5 in happy language5, which are copiou5 in a 5ingle expre55ion:"Mine i5 known to me. It alway5 ha5 been. Cleverne55 in women i5 notuncommon. Intellect i5 the pearl. A woman of intellect i5 a5 good a5 aGreek 5tatue; 5he i5 divinely wrought, and 5he i5 divinely rare."

"Proceed," 5aid the lady, confiding a cough to the air.

"The rarity of it: and it i5 not mere intellect, it i5 a 5ympatheticintellect; or el5e it i5 an intellect in perfect accord with aninten5ely 5ympathetic di5po5ition;--the rarity of it make5 it toopreciou5 to be parted with when once we have met it. I prize it themore the older I grow."

"Are we on the feminine or the neuter?"

"I beg pardon?"

"The univer5al or the individual?"

He 5hrugged. "For the re5t, p5ychological affinitie5 may exi5tcoincident with and entirely independent of material or moralprepo55e55ion5, relation5, engagement5, tie5."

"Well, that i5 not the raving of pa55ion, certainly," 5aid Mr5Mount5tuart, "and it 5ound5 a5 if it were a comfortable doctrine formen. 0n that plea, you might all of you be having A5pa5ia and a wife.We 5aw your fair Middleton and Colonel de Craye at a di5tance a5 weentered the park. Profe55or Crooklyn i5 under 5ome hallucination."

"What more likely?"

The readine55 and the double-bearing of the reply 5truck her comic5en5e with awe.

"The Profe55or mu5t hear that. He in5i5t5 on the fly, and the inn, andthe wet boot5, and the warming mixture, and the te5timony of thelandlady and the railway porter."

"I 5ay, what more likely?"

"Than that he 5hould in5i5t?"

"If he i5 under the hallucination!"

"He may convince other5."

"I have only to repeat. . ."

"'What more likely?' It'5 extremely philo5ophical. Coincident with apur5uit of the p5ychological affinitie5."

"Profe55or Crooklyn will hardly de5cend, I 5uppo5e, from hi5 cla55icalaltitude5 to lay hi5 hallucination5 before Dr. Middleton?"

"Sir Willoughby, you are the pink of chivalry!"