“Not your brother, miss,—eh?”
“La, sir—why not?”
“No faumily likeness—noice-looking fellow enough! But your oiyes and mouth—ah, miss!”
Miss turned away her head, and uttered with pert vivacity: “I never likes compliments, sir! But the young man is not my brother.”
“A sweetheart,—eh? Oh fie, miss! Haw! haw!” and the auburn-whiskered Adonis poked Philip in the knee with one hand, and the pale gentleman in the ribs with the other. The latter looked up, and reproachfully; the former drew in his legs, and uttered an angry ejaculation.
“Well, sir, there is no harm in a sweetheart, is there?”
“None in the least, ma’am; I advoise you to double the dose. We often hear of two strings to a bow. Daun’t you think it would be noicer to have two beaux to your string?” As he thus wittily expressed himself, the gentleman took off his cap, and thrust his fingers through a very curling and comely head of hair; the young lady looked at him with evident coquetry, and said, “How you do run on, you gentlemen!”
“I may well run on, miss, as long as I run aufter you,” was the gallant reply.
Here the pale gentleman, evidently annoyed by being talked across, shut his book up, and looked round. His eye rested on Philip, who, whether from the heat of the day or from the forgetfulness of thought, had pushed his cap from his brows; and the gentleman, after staring at him for a few moments with great earnestness, sighed so heavily that it attracted the notice of all the passengers.
“Are you unwell, sir?” asked the young lady, compassionately.