"And am I to stand here and be courted?" said Fitzsimmons.
"Now do not be frightened," observed the Colonel, "and do not look round as if you were meditating an escape. I will stand by and see how you acquit yourself in this new and delightful situation. Come, Miss Mandeville, begin."
"What sort of courtship will you have?" said Lucinda, who could not avoid laughing. "The sentimental, the prudential, or the downright?"
"The downright, by all means," cried the Colonel. "No, no," said Fitzsimmons; "let me hear the others first. The downright would be too overwhelming without a previous preparation."
Lucinda affected to hide her face with a feather that had fallen from her head during the dance, and which she still held in her hand, and she uttered hesitatingly and with downcast eyes—
"If I could hope to be pardoned for my temerity in thus presuming to address one whose manifest perfections so preponderate in the scale, when weighed against my own demerits—"
"Oh! stop, stop!" exclaimed Fitzsimmons; "this will never do!"
"Why, it is just the way a poor young fellow courted me last summer," replied Lucinda. "Come, let me go on. Conscious as I am that I might as well 'love a bright and particular star, and think to wed it—'"
"You will never succeed in that strain," said Fitzsimmons, laughing. "You must try another."
"Well, then," continued Lucinda, changing her tone, "here is the prudential mode. Mr. Gordon Fitzsimmons, thinking it probable (though I speak advisedly) that you may have no objection to change your condition, and believing (though perhaps I may be mistaken) that we are tolerably well suited to each other—I being my own mistress, and you being your own master—perceiving no great disparity of age, or incompatibility of temper—"