THE CANON OF WINDSOR.
XV. THE QUEEN OF BEAUTY.
XVI. AUGURIES.
XVII. THE VICTIM DEMANDED.
XVIII. THE PROPOSAL.
XIX. WOOING IN THE DARK.
XX. THE MUFFLED BRIDEGROOM.
XXI. THE SISTER'S MEETING
XXII. A FATAL SPARK.
XXIII. WRATH AND DESOLATION.
XXIV. THE WANDERER.
XXV. VANISHED.
XXVI. THE TRACES.
XXVII. CYTHEREA'S BOWER.
XXVIII. THE ROUT.
XXIX. A BLACK BLONDEL.
XXX. THE FIRST TASK.
XXXI. THE SECOND TASK.
XXXII. LIONS.
XXXIII. THE COSMETIC.
XXXIV. DOWN THE RIVER.
XXXV. THE RETURN.
XXXVI. WAKING.
XXXVII. MAKING THE BEST OF IT.
LOVE AND LIFE.
CHAPTER I. A SYLLABUB PARTY.
Oft had I shadowed such a group
Of beauties that were born
In teacup times of hood and hoop,
And when the patch was worn;
And legs and arms with love-knots gay.
About me leaped and laughed
The modish Cupid of the day,
And shrilled his tinselled shaft.--Tennyson.
If times differ, human nature and national character vary but little;
and thus, in looking back on former times, we are by turns startled
by what is curiously like, and curiously unlike, our own sayings and
doings.
The feelings of a retired officer of the nineteenth century expecting
the return of his daughters from the first gaiety of the youngest
darling, are probably not dissimilar to those of Major Delavie, in
the earlier half of the seventeen hundreds, as he sat in the deep bay
window of his bed-room; though he wore a green velvet nightcap; and
his whole provision of mental food consisted of half a dozen worn
numbers of the _Tatler_, and a _Gazette_ a fortnight old.
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