"I pray thee do not breathe these little maidenish confidences, for it might make hard feeling between me and some of my gentlemen friends I have had to get checked at numerous places of refreshment.

The white, maidenish and silk-haired fairness of Sidwell, and Peak's irresistible passion for the type of beauty suggested, is revealed to us with all Gissing's wonderful skill in shadowing forth feminine types of lovelihood.