MARRIAGE A-LA-MODE. 



" OH ! you exquisite creature ! you transcendant incarnation of 

 loveliness ! could Venus herself have been more perfect, she had been 

 less pleasing ! Radiant and witching girl, my heart bows to thy 

 sovereign beauty ! How gracefully she steps forth how nobly she 

 carries her head, conscious of empire how elegantly she disposes 

 that favoured shawl around the living ivory of her swelling shoulders ! 

 Alas ! she is gone, and I am divided from the heaven of her presence !" 

 Of such shape were my thoughts, on one most particular Tuesday 

 evening, as I stood (by the rarest accident in the world) among the 

 throng at the pit-entrance of the King's Theatre, surveying the various 

 deposits made at that inviting embouchure by the vehicles which suc- 

 cessively drew up. The mental inanity I had previously felt (in 

 common, I dare say, with the rest of the crowd) was banished by the 

 first glance at the fair being indicated in the above faint apostrophe. 

 When she had alighted, and entered the house (with two elderly 

 persons, her companions), I stood transfixed (as far as the undulation 

 of the crowd would let me), and her image filled my mind to its 

 utmost capacity. Never had I beheld human form so enchanting! 

 never before had I made so instant a surrender of my heart ! Oh ! 

 those envious walls, interposing their eclipse between the sun of her 

 charms and my poor external sense ! Should I enter, and so partake 

 of the light of gladness else denied ? I felt my right-hand pocket, 

 and my present funds were not below the requisite half-guinea. I 

 rushed into the hall of the temple of harmony. 



" Pay here, sir." " Oh ! by all means there." " Stay, sir won't 

 do not dressed mustn't go in out of the question, sir." 



True it was that my costume was of a non-conforming character : 

 a green coat with gilt buttons, a parti- coloured cravat, and drab 

 smalls, with elongators en suite, were not within the pale of even the 

 lax code which preceded Mr. Monck Mason's. There was no course 

 but to retire which I did with a heaviness that doubtless stamped on 

 the man's attention the extra fact of my " walking shoes." I could 

 not have denied that I was no figure for the occasion yet, with the 

 obstinacy of thwarted feeling, I regarded that man at the moment as 

 the most hateful of all " exclusives." 



I stood again among the out-of-doors company, my person jostled 

 about as much as my uncertain mind. Should I go home, and qualify 

 myself to return ? I lived at the farther end of Cheapside ; but what 

 of that ? I was engaged at my musical club, and they had no other 



first flute. Well, there was something in that and yet 



Here I was shaken out of the adhesive part of my perplexity by the 

 peremptory " move on there !" of a surly sentry, who seemed deter- 

 mined to prove himself " a full private," by the rigorous enforcement 

 of his brief authority. I turned away from the door, as Adam turned 

 from that of Paradise ! 



My way back to the City presented nothing but the all-absorbing 



