'Poor little tender dove!' cried the baronet. ''Twould be odious to cure her. Unfeeling to excess. What in nature can be half so mellifluously interesting? I shall now look at her with most prodigious softness. Ought one not to sigh as she approaches?'

'The matter to be sure is silly enough,' answered Mrs. Arlbery; 'but, this nonsense apart, she is a charming girl. Besides, I perceive I am a violent favourite with her; and flattery, my dear Clarendel, will work its way, even with me! I really owe her a good turn: Else I should no longer endure her; for the tender passion has terribly flattened her. If we can't restore her spirits, she will be a mere dead weight to me.'

'O a very crush! a cannon ball would be a butterfly in the comparison! But who is the irresistible? What form has the little blind traitor assumed?'

'O, assure yourself, that of the first young man who has come in her sight. Every damsel, as she enters the world, has some picture ready painted upon her imagination, of an object worthy to enslave her: and before any experience forms her judgment, or any comparison her taste, she is the dupe of the first youth who presents himself to her, in the firm persuasion of her ductile fancy, that he is just the model it had previously created.'

She then added, she had little doubt but young Mandlebert was the hero, from their private conferences after the raffle, and from her blushes when forced to name him.

'Nay, nay, this is not the first incongruity!' said the young baronet, 'not romantic to outrage. Beech Park has nothing very horrific in it. Nothing invincibly beyond the standard of a young lady's philosophy.'

'Depend upon it, that's the very idea its master has conceived of the matter himself. You wealthy Cavaliers rarely want flappers to remind you of your advantages. That Mandlebert, you must know, is my aversion. He has just that air and reputation of faultlessness that gives me the spleen. I hope, for her sake, he won't think of her; he will lead her a terrible life. A man who piques himself upon his perfections, finds no mode so convenient and ready for displaying them, as proving all about him to be constantly in the wrong. However, a character of that stamp rarely marries; especially if he is rich, and has no obstacles in his way. What can I do, then, for this poor thing? The very nature of her malady is to make her entertain false hopes. I am quite bent upon curing them. The only difficulty, according to custom, is how. I wish you would take her in hand yourself.'

'I?... preposterous in the extreme! what particle of chance should I have against Mandlebert?'

'O you vain wretch! to be sure you don't know, that though he is rich, you are richer? and, doubtless, you never took notice, that though he is handsome, you are handsomer? As to manners, there is little to choose between you, for he is as much too correct, as you are too fantastic. In conversation, too, you are nearly upon a par, for he is as regularly too right, as you are ridiculously too wrong,—but O the charm of dear amusing wrong, over dull commanding right! you have but to address yourself to her with a little flattering distinction, and Mandlebert ever after will appear to her a pedant.'

'What a wicked sort of sprite is a female wit!' cried Sir Sedley, 'breathing only in mischief! a very will-o'-the-wisp, personified and petticoated, shining but to lead astray. Dangerous past all fathom! Have the goodness, however, my fair Jack-o'-lanthorn, to intimate what you mean I should do with this languishing dulcinea, should I deliver her from thraldom? You don't advise me, I presume, to take unto myself a wife? I protest I am shivered to the utmost point north at the bare suggestion! frozen to an icicle!'