"If you thought she would have you," replied Mrs. O'Donoghoe, laughing, "you would propose without minding the years. If a girl had eighteen pence, you would propose instantly, for fear she might spend a shilling of it!"
"I am told Miss Crawford was born in diamond ear-rings," said Agnes. "She looks as if it had rained precious stones on her ever since,—as if she had been pelted at the Carnival with diamonds instead of sugar-plums! The price of blonde and feathers is raised in every town where the Miss Crawfords arrive!——"
"The Miss Crawfords must not be ridiculed," interrupted Captain De Crespigny, looking very magnanimous, "at least by any one except myself! They are my preserve! They both dress in the last extreme of jewellery to please me; and I am pleased. If I have a weakness in the world, it is for dress; and, in my opinion, ladies ought all to shine like glow-worms every night. Look at this indefinite article of a man approaching! Tall, and covered with orders, he looks like a house insured! Who can he be?"
"Never distress yourself about who people are," said Agnes. "Somebody's son, I believe,—and somebody's nephew or cousin, with estates in all the disturbed districts of Ireland."
"Very accurate and satisfactory! Watering-place imaginations are apt to be a little inventive; like Cuvier, who described the whole history and formation of any animal from seeing merely a single tooth! With that bottle-green coat and all that light hair on the roof his head, he looks like a bottle of porter newly drawn, and foaming at the top. It makes me thirsty to see him."
"I excel particularly in biography," added Agnes, laughing. "That tigerish-looking man you are inquiring about, with all the little stars and bits of ribbon, had a whole regiment of horses killed under him at Waterloo! He saw sixteen colonels of cavalry lose their heads that day in battle, and he received fifteen mortal wounds himself, before he left the field!"
"Agnes, your stories would be as difficult to bolt as the American oyster, which it took three men to swallow whole! You remind me of the man who contrived to place a fly's eye so that he could see through it, and he found that it multiplied everything, till a single officer appeared like a whole army. I never saw a man ride as that stranger did this morning! His horse is a mere spider, and he jumped up and down in the saddle like a cup and ball?" said Sir Patrick, laughing; "but the climax of all his atrocities was, five minutes ago, when Marion re-entered the room, I heard him request that the master of the ceremonies would introduce him to one of my sisters! I am at a loss to guess which, but here he comes, drawing on a splendid pair of gloves!"
"Pray do not let me be the victim!" said Agnes, shrinking back with a contemptuous toss of the head. "I have no turn for teaching a bear to dance! and I will not be made ridiculous by having such a partner! The ugliest man I ever saw for nothing! Is he a human being?"
"For my part, I do not feel that being ridiculous or otherwise depends on any one but myself," said Marion good-humoredly; "and if it will make a man, all ribbons and orders of merit, happy, to perform a quadrille, I have not the least objection to be his partner, especially when he wears such very clean gloves!"
"Miss Dunbar!" said the master of the ceremonies, approaching Marion in his most pompous manner, "allow me to introduce the Duke of Kinross!"