did not cure."

COLONEL MORLEY.--"I suspect, from Vance's manner, that he has tested its
efficacy on his own person."

LIONEL.--"NO, mon Colonel--I'll answer for Vance. He in love! Never."

Vance coloured--gave a touch to the nose of a Roman senator in the famous
classical picture which he was then painting for a merchant at
Manchester--and made no reply. Darrell looked at the artist with a sharp
and searching glance.

COLONEL MORLEY.--"Then all the more credit to Vance for his intuitive
perception of philosophical truth. Suppose, my dear Lionel, that we
light, one idle day, on a beautiful novel, a glowing romance--suppose
that, by chance, we are torn from the book in the middle of the interest
--we remain under the spell of the illusion--we recall the scenes--we try
to guess what should have been the sequel--we think that no romance ever
was so captivating, simply because we were not allowed to conclude it.
Well, if, some years afterwards, the romance fall again in our way, and
we open at the page where we left off, we cry, in the maturity of our
sober judgment, 'Mawkish stuff!--is this the same thing that I once
thought so beautiful?--how one's tastes do alter!'"

DARRELL.--"Does it not depend on the age in which one began the romance?"

LIONEL.--"Rather, let me think, sir, upon the real depth of the
interest--the true beauty of the--"

VANCE (interrupting).--" Heroine?--Not at all, Lionel. I once fell in