“Your feelings, sir,” answered he, “are remarkable, but by no means new; for I have myself been subject to a precisely similar train of emotions, and from a cause similar to yours.  The thing is odd, I allow—­what my friend, Coleridge, would call a psychological curiosity—­but, I believe, every human being has at times felt it more or less.  The unlucky woman who has proved such a source of annoyance to you, has been none whatever to me.  She is plain-looked, to be sure, but it did not strike me that there was any thing peculiarly unpleasant in her aspect; and as for her silence, that, in my eyes, is no discommendation.  So much for the different trains of emotions experienced by different persons from the same cause.  There is, in truth, my dear sir, no accounting for such metaphysical phenomena.  We must just take them as we find them, and be contented to know the effect while we remain in ignorance of the cause.  Now, to show that you do not stand alone in such feelings, I shall, with your permission, relate an event which lately occurred to myself; on which occasion I was horribly annoyed by a circumstance in itself perfectly harmless and trivial, and which gave me much more disturbance than the taciturn lady who has just left us has given to you.  My adventure, in truth, was attended with such extraordinary results, both to myself and another individual, that it possesses many of the characters of a genuine romance.”  Having expressed my desire to hear what he had to relate on such a subject, he proceeded as follows:—­

“The circumstance I allude to happened not long ago, while supping at the house of a literary friend in Edinburgh.  On arriving, about nine in the evening, I was ushered into his library, where I found him, accompanied by two other friends; and in the short interval which elapsed before supper was announced, we amused ourselves looking at his books, and making comments upon such of them as struck our fancy.  Our host was distinguished for learning; he was a man, in fact, of uncommon abilities, both natural and acquired; and the two guests who chanced to be with him were, in this particular, little inferior to himself.  Among the other books which we happened to take up, was Punch and Judy, illustrated by the inimitable pencil of George Cruikshank.  While looking at these capital delineations of the characters in the famous popular opera of the fairs, no particular emotion, save one of a good deal of pleasure, passed through my mind.  I looked at them as I would do at any other humorous prints; and laying down the volume, thought no more of it at the time.