“I declare,” cried the Lady Hasselton, flirting her fan, which was somewhat smaller than the screen that one puts into a great hall, in order to take off the discomfort of too large a room,—“I declare, Count, there is a vast deal of originality about you. But tell me, Sir William, where did your nephew acquire, at so early an age—eleven, you say, he is—such a fund of agreeable assurance?”
“Nay, Madam, let the boy answer for himself.”
“Imprimis, then,” said I, playing with the ribbon of my cane,—“imprimis, early study of the best authors,—Congreve and Farquhar, Etherege and Rochester; secondly, the constant intercourse of company which gives one the spleen so overpoweringly that despair inspires one with boldness—to get rid of them; thirdly, the personal example of Sir William Devereux; and, fourthly, the inspiration of hope.”
“Hope, sir?” said the Lady Hasselton, covering her face with her fan, so as only to leave me a glimpse of the farthest patch upon her left cheek,—“hope, sir?”
“Yes, the hope of being pleasing to you. Suffer me to add that the hope has now become certainty.”
“Upon my word, Count—”
“Nay, you cannot deny it; if one can once succeed in impudence, one is irresistible.”
“Sir William,” cried Lady Hasselton, “you may give the Count your chariot of green and gold, and your four Flanders mares, and send his mother’s maid with him. He shall not go with me.”
“Cruel! and why?” said I.
“You are too”—the lady paused, and looked at me over her fan. She was really very handsome—“you are too old, Count. You must be more than nine.”