“AMEN!” Such was the sound, given in a short shout, which closed the evening service at Ebenezer Chapel. Mr Bromley rose from his knees. He had wrestled hard, and the sweat of his pious labours shone like oil upon his forehead. Fetching a deep breath and passing his handkerchief over his damp brow, the apostle sank back in his seat. Then, extending both brawny arms and resting them on the sides of the pulpit, with the yellow-spotted handkerchief dependent from one hand, he sat and watched the evacuation of the crowded galleries.

“How oppressively hot the chapel has been to-night,” said a soft voice to me, and a bonnet, bending forward, waved its ribbons against my face.

“Aye, in two senses,” was my answer. “Literally, as to atmosphere, and figuratively, as to zeal. Our brother has exercised [conducted ther service; expounded scripture (obsolete)] with freedom, madam.”

“Nonsense, Charles! I never can get into this slang! But come, the crowd is lessening at the gallery-door. I think we shall be able to make our way through it now, and I do long to get a breath of fresh air. Give me my shawl, Charles.”

The lady rose, and, while I carefully enveloped her in the shawl and boa ["a snake-like coil of fur or feathers worn by women about the neck" (OED). The earliest usage in this sense cited in the OED is 1936; CB was clearly familiar with the latest fashions] which were to protect her from the night-air, she said, smiling persuasively, “You will escort me to my villa and sup with me on a radish and an egg.” I answered by pressing the white hand over which she was just drawing a glove of French kid. She passed that hand through my arm and we left the gallery together.

A perfectly still and starlight night welcomed us as we quitted the steam and torches of the chapel. Threading our way quickly through the dispersing crowd at the door, we entered a well-known and oft-trod way, which in half an hour brought us from among the lighted shops and busy streets of our quartier to the deep shade and — at this hour — the unbroken retirement of the vale.

“Charles,” said my fair companion in her usual voice, half a whisper, half a murmur. “Charles, what a sweet night — a premature summer night! It only wants the moon to make it perfect — then I could see my villa. Those stars are not close enough to bring out the white front fully from its laurels. And yet I do see a light glittering there. Is it not from my drawing-room window?”

“Probably,” was my answer, and I said no more. Her ladyship’s softness is at times too surfeiting, more especially when she approaches the brink of the sentimental.

“Charles,” she pursued, in no wise abashed by my coolness. “How many fond recollections come on us at such a time as this! Where do you think my thoughts always stray on a summer night? What image do you think ‘a cloudless clime and starry skies’ always suggests?”

“Perhaps,” said I, “that of the most noble Richard, Marquis of Wellesley, as you last saw him, reposing in gouty chair and stool, with eyelids gently closed by the influence of the pious libations in claret with which he has concluded the dinner of rice-currie, devilled turkey and guava.”

Louisa, instead of being offended, laughed with silver sound. “You are partly right,” said she. “The figure you have described does indeed form a portion of my recollections. Now, will you finish the picture, or shall I do it in your stead?”

“I resign the pencil into hands better qualified for its management,” rejoined I.

“Well, then, listen,” continued the Marchioness. “Removed from the easy chair and cushioned foot-stool and from the slumbering occupant thereof, imagine a harp - that very harp which stands now in my boudoir. Imagine a woman, seated by it. I need not describe her: it is myself. She is not playing. She is listening to one who leans on her instrument and whispers as softly as the wind now whispers in my acacias.”

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