"Nothing that matters;—only a word. I haven't come here to talk about Madame Max Goesler,—nor yet about Mr. Kennedy."
"Whom have you come to talk about?" asked Violet, laughing a little, with something of increased colour in her cheeks, though she could not be said to blush.
"A lover of course," said Lady Laura.
"I wish you would leave me alone with my lovers. You are as bad or worse than my aunt. She, at any rate, varies her prescription. She has become sick of poor Lord Fawn because he's a Whig."
"And who is her favourite now?"
"Old Mr. Appledom,—who is really a most unexceptionable old party, and whom I like of all things. I really think I could consent to be Mrs. Appledom, to get rid of my troubles,—if he did not dye his whiskers and have his coats padded."
"He'd give up those little things if you asked him."
"I shouldn't have the heart to do it. Besides, this isn't his time of the year for making proposals. His love fever, which is of a very low kind, and intermits annually, never comes on till the autumn. It is a rural malady, against which he is proof while among his clubs!"
"Well, Violet,—I am like your aunt."
"Like Lady Baldock?"