the art of seeming to make things of small
account, and really enhancing them in the process. While Henry Gowan, whom
Decimus had thrown away, went through the whole round of his acquaintance
between the Gate of the People and the town of Albano, vowing, almost (but not
quite) with tears in his eyes, that Sparkler was the sweetest-tempered,
simplest-hearted, altogether most lovable jackass that ever grazed on the public
common; and that only one circumstance could have delighted him (Gowan) more,
than his (the beloved jackass's) getting this post, and that would have been his
(Gowan's) getting it himself. He said, it was the very thing for Sparkler. There
was nothing to do, and he would do it charmingly; there was a handsome salary to
draw, and he would draw it charmingly; it was a delightful, appropriate, capital
appointment; and he almost forgave the donor his slight of himself, in his joy
that the dear donkey for whom he had so great an affection was so admirably
stabled. Nor did his benevolence stop here. He took pains, on all social
occasions, to draw Mr. Sparkler out, and make him conspicuous before the
company; and, although the considerate action always resulted in that young
gentleman's making a dreary and forlorn mental spectacle of himself, the
friendly intention was not to be doubted.
    Unless, indeed, it chanced to be doubted by the object of Mr. Sparkler's
affections. Miss Fanny was now in the difficult situation of being universally
known in that light, and of not having dismissed Mr. Sparkler, however
capriciously she used him. Hence, she was sufficiently identified with the
gentleman to feel compromised by his being more than usually ridiculous; and
hence, being by no means deficient in quickness, she sometimes came to his
rescue against Gowan, and did him very good service. But, while doing this, she
was ashamed of him, undetermined whether to get rid of him or more decidedly
encourage him, distracted with apprehensions that she was every day becoming
more and more immeshed in her uncertainties, and tortured by misgivings that
Mrs. Merdle triumphed in her distress. With this tumult in her mind, it is no
subject for surprise that Miss Fanny came home one night in a state of agitation
from a concert and ball at Mrs. Merdle's house, and on her sister affectionately
trying to soothe her, pushed that sister away from the toilette-table at which
she sat angrily trying to cry, and declared with a heaving bosom that she