"I have asked Fanny Stafford, and she has promised to come."
"No! that is fun!" said Bella Merton, laughing.
"And Mr. Burgess----"
"No! that's better still!" said Bella, laughing more heartily: "what! our Mr. Burgess?"
"Of course. Did he not tell you?"
"Not one single word, dear. But of course I understand why!" and the young lady relapsed into fits of merriment.
"You have all the joke to yourself at present, Bella," said John Merton, looking up from his fashion-book.
"And you won't have any of it, so far as I can see, during any part of the evening, my poor old John!" said his sister.
"I'm sorry I can't understand your West End wit, Bella dear," said their hostess, with some asperity.
"You will see it all in a minute," said Bella, striving to compose her countenance. "Burgess has been raving-mad in love with Fanny Stafford, whom he has only seen for an instant, ever since Mr. Kammerer gave him her photograph to tint. My brother John, here, of course fell over head and ears directly he saw her; and there's another man of a different kind, with no end of money and position and all that, about whom I must say nothing. So much for Fanny Stafford. But what's to become of you and me, Augusta? There's nobody left for us but old Gus."