It was impossible that such nick-nacks as he there beheld could be intended for male use, and still less for such men as were the Squire's guests.

Did this chamber and its neighbor apartment usually own a female proprietress?
and if so, why was _he_ placed there?
This idea by no means alarmed the young landscape-painter, who had no more _mauvaise honte_, nor dislike to adventures of gallantry, than Gil Blas de Santillane.

He sat down at the escritoire, and, taking up a gilt pen with a ridiculous silk tassel, began a letter to the same person to whom that day he had already dispatched a missive; but this time it was not so brief: the day of brilliant dies and illuminated addresses had not as yet set in, so he wrote at the top of the little scented sheet, in a bold free hand, the word Crompton! and put a note of admiration after it.

Had you seen his face as he did so, you would have said it was a note of triumph.
"My DEAR MOTHER,--_Veni, vidi, vici_--I have come, I have seen him, and I am at all events tolerated.

The perilous moment was when I told him who I was.