"Dat vare excellent bird—how you call him? Peasant—ah!" observed Baron Torkemdef to the young clergyman, who, like a child, saw, heard, but said nothing. "But after all it no use for to praise one ting or to blame anoder—'cause dem each de idea—de fancy. Dere really no table—no peasant—no wine—no peoples: it all de imagination."
And while the philosopher went on expatiating in this manner, the viands disappeared from his plate and the wine from the decanter near him with a marvellous rapidity; so that the young clergyman could not help muttering to himself, "I wonder whether the Baron's appetite is an idea also."
"Seraphina," whispered the Countess of Brazenphace to one of her daughters, "if you look so much at Count Swindeliski, I shall be very angry. He has got no money, and is not a match for you. There is the Member for Buyemup-cum-Rhino sitting on your right, and he is a wealthy bachelor."
"But, dear mamma," returned Miss Seraphina, also in a whisper, "he is at least sixty."
"So much the better," was the prompt reply: "he is the easier to catch. Now mind your p's and q's, Miss."
This maternal advice was duly attended to; and, by the time he had tossed off his third glass of champagne, the Member for Buyemup-cum-Rhino had grown very tenderly maudlin towards the red-haired young husband-hunter.
"Miss Blewstocken, dear," cried the elder Miss Wigmore, "have you composed nothing appropriate for the present occasion?—no sweet little poem in your own fascinating style?"
"Oh! dear Miss Wigmore, how unkind!" said the literary young lady, in an affected and languishing manner. "I could not have believed it of you—to appeal to me before so many! If I have told you in confidence, or if it be indeed generally known that 'The Poetic Nosegay' was written by me—and if it had a very large circulation—I do not think it is fair to expect——"
"Ah! Miss Blewstocken," exclaimed Miss Wigmore, "we are all aware that your pen is seldom idle."
"It is really quite provoking to find oneself known to Fame," said the literary lady, with increasing affectation of manner, and in a drawling, insipid tone. "I wish I had never written at all:—not that I have ever been induced to acknowledge the authorship of that novel which was so successful last year—'The Royal Fiddlestick,' I mean. No:—but the time may come——"