"Jemmy took two or three hours to _make himself up_ in the morning, emerging from his shell at 10 o'clock in the forenoon, a perfect Beau Brummell. The most fastidious taste could detect no flaw; the most critical or censorious eye no foppery. His figure was matchless, or his tailor, or both together; and his coats always of a shade of color unattainable by any one but Jemmy. Last, not least, he rejoiced in a set of dickies that left him at perfect liberty to look east, west, north or south, without cutting his ears off! He never appeared in public, 'en dishabille,' either of body or mind. Both were, at such times, in their holiday suit.
"Now it was very selfish in Jemmy to 'waste his sweetness on the desert air,' for so many years; but he had two good reasons for it. The first was that he considered himself too bright a jewel to be in the possession of any one woman exclusively. The next was, he was terribly afraid of being taken in. He never made a call on a _single_ woman without taking some male acquaintance (not too attractive) to neutralize the force of the compliment. A bright eye or a pretty ankle gave him spasms. He couldn't live away from their owners, and he was afraid to go too near them.
"He was most at his ease in a large family of sisters, where he could sprinkle about his attentions and gallantries in homoeopathic doses; or in the society of married ladies, where a man stands in no fear of being asked "_his intentions_."
"Susy ---- was the bright, particular star in _this_ firmament. She was always in choice spirits, sparkling as a bottle of champagne, well-dressed, good-tempered, always ready for a drive, a walk, a sail or a pic-nic, and always the belle of the party.
"She was visiting at the house of a friend; and Jemmy felt himself so _safe_ there. The newest piece of music, the most fragrant of Gibbens' bouquets, the last of Dickens's perpetrations, found their way to "Barley Place, No. 5." Susy hemmed three splendid neck-ties, with her own fair fingers; mended the little rips in his gloves, (that he had amused himself _making_ for her when he sat alone in his room,) and told him, confidentially, how to trim his moustache and where to lay the pruning-knife to his whiskers. Jemmy was a lucky man!