on the subject of that letter. I believe he tried two or three times to confess to Miss Lamb, though it went sadly against the grain. I think, myself, that a twentieth edition would have loosened his tongue; yet I must say, in justice to him, that Miss Lamb was partly responsible for his ill success. She had the most singular way of warding off confidences. I remember one occasion in particular when she turned the conversation so effectually that it would have been impossible to go on.
It was two or three days after our solemn auto-da-fé, and we were picnicking with a party of people at Monument Park. By rare good luck John and I had got Miss Lamb to ourselves, a little apart from the rest of the crowd, in a warm, sunny hollow, at the foot of one of those huge yellow monsters in stone with hats on their heads. Miss Lamb and I were making an amicable exchange of a very plump quail in return for a glass of claret, when she suddenly
