"Lydia, child, my hat!—Lord Verney, if it please you, sir, your arm as far as the Pump Room." ("At least," she thought to herself, "all Bath shall know of my latest conquest")
She tied her hat ribbons under her chin.
"How like you the mode?" said she. And, charmed into smiles again by the rosy vision under the black plumes, she flashed round upon him from the mirror. "Is it not, perhaps, a thought fly-away? Yet 'tis the latest. What says my Verney?"
The poor youth vainly endeavoured to discriminate and criticise.
"It is indeed a very fine hat," said he ... "and there seem to be a vast number of feathers upon it." He hesitated, stammered. "Oh, what care I for modes! 'Tis you, you——"
"What are you staring at, girl?" cried Mistress Bellairs sharply, to her Abigail. "Out with you!"
"Well, my Verney?" said she. "Mercy, how you look, man! Is anything wrong with my face?"
She tilted that lovely little piece of perishable bloom innocently towards him as she spoke. And the kiss she had read in his eyes landed with unprecedented success upon her lips.
"Why, who knows?" thought she, with a little satisfied smile, as she straightened her modish hat. "There may be stuff in the lad, after all!"
She took his arm. Dazed by his own audacity, he suffered her to lead him from the room. They jostled together down the narrow stairs.