“But I can make them croak when I will,” she added, “when I only go so to my snuff-box, knock, knock, knock, they croak all what I please." “Very pretty, indeed!” exclaimed Colonel Goldsworthy.
“I thought to have some spawn,” she continued; “but then Maria Carlton, what you call Lady Doncaster, came and frightened them; I was never so angry!”
“I am sorry for that,” cried the major, very seriously, “for else I should have begged a pair.”
“So you meant, ma’am, to have had a breed of them,” cried Colonel Goldsworthy; “a breed of young frogs? Vastly clever, indeed!”
Then followed a formal enumeration of their virtues and endearing little qualities, which made all laugh except the new equerry, who sat in perfect amaze.
Then, suddenly, she stopped short, and called out, “There! now I have told you all this, you might tell something to me. I have talked enoff; now you might amuse me.”
July 19.—In the afternoon, while I was working in Mrs. Schwellenberg’s room, Mr. Turbulent entered, to summon Miss Planta to the princesses; and, in the little while of executing that simple commission, he made such use of his very ungovernable and extraordinary eyes, that the moment he was gone, Mrs. Schwellenberg demanded “for what he looked so at me?”
I desired to know what she meant. “Why, like when he was so cordial with you? Been you acquainted?”
“O, yes!” cried I, “I spent three hours twice a-week upon the road with him and Miss Planta, all the winter; and three or four dinners and afternoons besides.”
“O that’s nothing! that’s no acquaintance at all. I have had people to me, to travel and to dine, fourteen and fifteen years, and yet they been never so cordial!”