"I have not the glass you want, but I carry with me a mirror that reflects your features much more faithfully."
"How! I protest I do not understand you!"
"The mirror is here!" said I, laying my hand to my heart.
"'Gad, I must kiss the boy!" cried my uncle, starting up.
"I have sworn," said I, fixing my eyes upon the lady,—"I have sworn never to be kissed, even by women. You must pardon me, Uncle."
"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."