friend, Coleridge, would call a psychological curiosity--but, I believe,
every human being has at times felt it more or less. The unlucky woman who
has proved such a source of annoyance to you, has been none whatever to
me. She is plain-looked, to be sure, but it did not strike me that there
was any thing peculiarly unpleasant in her aspect; and as for her silence,
_that_, in my eyes, is no discommendation. So much for the different
trains of emotions experienced by different persons from the same cause.
There is, in truth, my dear sir, no accounting for such metaphysical
phenomena. We must just take them as we find them, and be contented to
know the effect while we remain in ignorance of the cause. Now, to show
that you do not stand alone in such feelings, I shall, with your
permission, relate an event which lately occurred to myself; on which
occasion I was horribly annoyed by a circumstance in itself perfectly
harmless and trivial, and which gave me much more disturbance than the
taciturn lady who has just left us has given to you. My adventure, in
truth, was attended with such extraordinary results, both to myself and
another individual, that it possesses many of the characters of a genuine
romance." Having expressed my desire to hear what he had to relate on such
a subject, he proceeded as follows:--

"The circumstance I allude to happened not long ago, while supping at the
house of a literary friend in Edinburgh. On arriving, about nine in the
evening, I was ushered into his library, where I found him, accompanied by
two other friends; and in the short interval which elapsed before supper
was announced, we amused ourselves looking at his books, and making
comments upon such of them as struck our fancy. Our host was distinguished
for learning; he was a man, in fact, of uncommon abilities, both natural
and acquired; and the two guests who chanced to be with him were, in this
particular, little inferior to himself. Among the other books which we
happened to take up, was _Punch and Judy_, illustrated by the inimitable