Have you ever watched her at a big dance?  She takes possession of some large warrior who has lately arrived from the battle-fields of Umballa or Meerut, and she chaperones him about the rooms, staying him with flagons and prattling low nothings.  The weaker vessel jibs a little at first; but gradually the spell begins to work and the love-light kindles in his eye.  He dances, he makes a joke, he tells a story, he turns round and looks her in the face.  He is lost.  That big centurion is a casualty; and no one pities him.  “How can he go on like that, odious creature!” say the withered wall-flowers, and the Hill Captains fume round, working out formulae to express his baseness.  But he is away on the glorious mountains of vanity; the intoxicating atmosphere makes life tingle in his blood; he is an [Greek:  aerobataes], he no longer treads the earth.  In a few days Mrs. Lollipop will receive a post-card from the Colonel of her centurion’s regiment.

MY DEAR MRS.

Lollipop, dic, per omnes
Te deos oro, Robinson cur properes amando
Perdere? cur apricum
Oderit campum, patiens pulveris atque solis.

Yrs.  Sincy.

HORACE FITZDOTTREL.

Ten to one an Archdeacon will be sent for to translate this.  Ten to one there is a shindy, ending in tea and tearful smiles; for she is bound to get a blowing up.

After what I have written I suppose it would be superfluous to affirm with oaths my irrefragable belief in Mrs. Lollipop’s innocence; it would be superfluous to deprecate the many-winged slanders that wound this milk-white hind.  If, however, by swearing, any of your readers think I can be of service to her character, I hope they will let me know.  I have learnt a few oaths lately that I reckon will unsphere some of the scandal-mongers of Nephelococcygia.  I had my ear one morning at the keyhole when the Army Commission was revising the cursing and swearing code for field service.—­(Ah! these dear old Generals, what depths of simplicity they disclose when they get by themselves!  I sometimes think that if I had my life to live over again I would keep a newspaper and become a really great General.  I know some five or six obscure aboriginal tribes that have never yet yielded a single war or a single K.C.B.)

But this is a digression.  I was maintaining the goodness of Mrs. Lollipop—­little Mrs. Lollipop! sweet little Mrs. Lollipop!  I was going to say that she was far too good to be made the subject of whisperings and innuendoes.  Her virtue is of such a robust type that even a Divorce Court would sink back abashed before it, like a guilty thing surprised.  Indeed, she often reminds me of Caesar’s wife.

The harpies of scandal protest that she dresses too low; that she exposes too freely the well-rounded charms of her black silk stockings; that she appears at fancy-dress balls picturesquely unclothed—­in a word, that the public sees a little too much of little Mrs. Lollipop; and that, in conversation with men, she nibbles at the forbidden apples of thought.  But all this proves her innocence, surely.  She fears no danger, for she knows no sin.  She cannot understand why she should hide anything from an admiring world.  Why keep her charms concealed from mortal eye, like roses that in deserts bloom and die?  She often reminds me of Una in Hypocrisy’s cell.