1832.] The Portrait : a Sketch. 267 



are engaged at six o'clock, and have to go home, dress, and be at Kings- 

 town in that ample space of time." It was five. " Come," continued 

 he; " is it tumbling into love you are about ? And do you think there 

 is but one beautiful woman in Dublin ?" 



" But one in the world I" exclaimed I. 



" Then, by my conscience/' rejoined he, " there is no such place in 

 the world as Dublin !" 



I went home, dressed, and drove in a car to Kingstown. A joyous 

 party but nothing could get me out of Sackville Street. I was ab- 

 stracted, restless, impatient of the restraint of company ; anxious to be 

 gone, without knowing whither to go. The evening had scarcely com- 

 menced when I stole away. I hastened home, and flung myself into 

 bed ; and, in bed, I was still in Sackville Street. 



Sackville Street Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday every day in the 

 following week ; but not a glimpse of the living portrait. " Hang you !" 

 exclaimed Armstrong, planting himself right before me, about half an hour 

 after I had commenced another week's promenade. " I never saw such 

 a fool, when you take a fancy into your head ! I want a pair of gloves 

 step with me to Grafton Street." And to Grafton Street the incorri- 

 gible Armstrong literally dragged me. " This is the shop/ 7 cried he, 

 entering one upon the right hand ; " and, by the powers ! there stands 

 your Venus herself, fitting her fair hand ! Up to her, my Mars !" whis- 

 pered he. There stood, indeed, the incomparable original of the por- 

 traither female companion along with her. She had been choosing 

 some gloves from several parcels, which lay open upon the counter. 

 She had just taken up a pair one of which she was about to try on. 

 It fitted her. " This will do," remarked she to the mistress of the shop. 

 " I shall take half a dozen pair, and send three dozen of different sizes 

 after me." The gloves were white. Just then our eyes encountered. 

 Her face in a moment became crimson, and then all at once turned to a 

 deadly pale ; she seemed gasping, as it were, for breath. I saw she was 

 ill, and sprang forward, and caught her as, I thought, she was about to 

 drop. She looked in my face as her colour slowly returned ; gently, 

 and without any expression of displeasure, disengaged herself, and 

 snatching the arm of her friend " Come/' said she, heaving a sigh, 

 which reminded me of the one which I had heard in the Exhibition- 

 room. 



My heart was in a tumult. The look of her male companion the 

 sigh the blush the blush again the strangeness of its sudden vanish- 

 ing and then the sigh again ! What was I to conclude ? They had 

 scarcely got into the street when I followed them. 



They proceeded up Grafton Street into Stephen's Green. I kept 

 about half a dozen yards behind them. They took the right hand side 

 of the square, and in crossing the end of Cuffe Street, passed one of 

 those semi-gentlemen, whose only occupation is idleness, and who 

 instantly followed them, keeping between them and me. He drew 

 nearer I saw what he was about and scarcely had he touched the 

 arm of the fair creature when I collared him. I had caught a Tartar ! 

 He was accomplished in an art, in which I had never felt any ambition 

 to excel. I let him go, thinking I had a gentleman to deal with, and 

 scarcely was he at liberty, when I was stretched, in a state of insensi- 

 bility, upon the street. 



When I came to myself, the first thing of which I was sensible was 



T 2 



