and reflections about sun-stroke by day; and even moments most devoted to the object of my heart’s aspirations were fettered by the very philosophic idea, that it could never detract from the pleasure of the happiness that awaited me, if I travelled on the primrose path to its attainment.  I argued thus:  if Lady Jane be true—­if—­if, in a word, I am destined to have any success in the Callonby family, then will a day or two more not risk it.  My present friends I shall, of course, take leave of at Paris, where their own acquaintances await them; and, on the other hand, should I be doomed once more to disappointment, I am equally certain I should feel no disposition to form a new attachment.  Thus did I reason, and thus I believed; and though I was a kind of consultation opinion among my friends in “suits of love,” I was really then unaware that at no time is a man so prone to fall in love as immediately after his being jilted.  If common sense will teach us not to dance a bolero upon a sprained ancle, so might it also convey the equally important lesson, not to expose our more vital and inflammatory organ to the fire the day after its being singed.

Reflections like these did not occur to me at this moment; besides that I was “going the pace” with a forty-horse power of agreeability that left me little time for thought—­least of all, if serious.  So stood matters.  I had just filled our tall slender glasses with the creaming and “petillan” source of wit and inspiration, when the loud crack, crack, crack of a postillion’s whip, accompanied by the shaking trot of a heavy team, and the roll of wheels, announced a new arrival.  “Here they come,” said I, “only look at them—­four horses and one postillion, all apparently straggling and straying after their own fancy, but yet going surprisingly straight notwithstanding.  See how they come through that narrow archway—­it might puzzle the best four-in-hand in England to do it better.”

What a handsome young man, if he had not those odious moustaches.  Why, Mr. Lorrequer, he knows you:  see, he is bowing to you.”

“Me!  Oh! no.  Why, surely, it must be—­the devil—­it is Kilkee, Lady Jane’s brother.  I know his temper well.  One five minutes’ observation of my present intimacy with my fair friends, and adieu to all hopes for me of calling Lord Callonby my father-in-law.  There is not therefore, a moment to lose.”

As these thoughts revolved through my mind, the confusion I felt had covered my face with scarlet; and, with a species of blundering apology for abruptly leaving them for a moment, I ran down stairs only in time sufficient to anticipate Kilkee’s questions as to the number of my apartments, to which he was desirous of proceeding at once.  Our first greetings over, Kilkee questioned me as to my route—­adding, that his now was necessarily an undecided one, for if his family happened not to be at Paris, he should be obliged to seek after them among the German watering-places.  “In any case, Mr. Lorrequer,” said he, “we shall hunt them in couples.  I must insist upon your coming along with me.”