"I am come from my friend Lorne," said Tom Sheridan. "I would not have intruded on you; but that, poor fellow, he is really annoyed, and he has commissioned me to acquaint you with the accident which obliged him to break his appointment; because I can best vouch for the truth of it, having upon my honour, with my own ears, heard the Prince of Wales invite Lord Lorne to Carlton House at the very moment when he was about to meet you in Somerstown. Lorne," continued Tom Sheridan, "desires me to say, that he is not coxcomb enough to imagine you cared for him; but in justice, he wants to stand exactly where he did in your opinion, before he broke his appointment: he was so perfectly innocent on that subject. 'I would write to her,' said he, again and again, 'but that, in all probability, my letters would be shown to Frederick Lamb, and be laughed at by them both. I would call on her, in spite of the devil; but that I know not where she lives.'
"I asked Argyle," Tom Sheridan proceeded, "how he had addressed his last letters to you? 'To the post office in Somers-town,' was his answer, 'and thence they were forwarded to Harriette.'" (He had tried to bribe the old woman there, to obtain my address, but she abused him, and turned him out of her shop.) "'It is very hard,'" continued Tom, repeating the words of his noble friend, "'to lose the good-will of one of the nicest, cleverest girls I ever met with in my life, who was, I am certain, civilly if not kindly disposed towards me, by such a mere accident.' Therefore," continued Tom Sheridan, smiling, "you'll make it up with Lorne, won't you?"
"There is nothing to forgive," said I, "if no slight was meant. In short you are making too much of me, and spoiling me, by all this explanation; for, indeed, I had at first been less indignant, but that I fancied his grace neglected me because——" and I hesitated, while I could feel myself blush deeply.
"Because what?" asked Tom Sheridan.
"Nothing;" I replied, looking at my shoes.
"What a pretty girl you are," observed Sheridan, "particularly when you blush."
"Fiddlestick!" said I, laughing, "you know you always preferred my sister Fanny."
"Well," replied Tom, "there I plead guilty. Fanny is the sweetest creature on earth; but you are all a race of finished coquettes, who delight in making fools of people.
"Now can anything come up to your vanity in writing to Lorne, that you are the most beautiful creature on earth?"
"Never mind," said I, "you set all that to rights. I was never vain in your society, in my life."