A HUMOURIST AND AN IDEALIST.
"The world was very guilty of such a ballad some three ages since; but, I think, now 'tis not to be found."
Love's Labour's Lost.
"A merrier man,
Within the limits of becoming mirth,
I never spent an hour's talk withal."
Act II.
While Waveney was doing her very best to make a favourable impression on the Misses Harford, an interview of a far different character was taking place at Number Ten, Cleveland Terrace.
Mollie, who was conscientious and strictly truthful, having been taught from childhood to abhor the very whitest of white lies, was trying laboriously to carry out a certain programme drawn up by Waveney. She was not to cry or to think of anything disagreeable, and she was only to look at the clock twice in an hour, and there was no need for her either to be always standing on the balcony and straining her eyes after every passer-by. It was sheer waste of time, and it would be far better to finish one of her pretty menu-cards; and Mollie, who was docile and tractable, had agreed to this.
"It shall have a spray of golden brown chrysanthemums," she said, quite cheerfully; and when Waveney left the house she arranged her painting-table and selected the flowers from Corporal Mark's nosegay.
But, alas!
"The best-laid schemes of mice and men
Gang aft agley."
Scarcely had Mollie wetted her brush before Ann the heavy-footed came up with an inflamed face and red eyes.