I praised the very unaffected character of Lord Robert Manners to Nugent, who sat next to me.
"Ah!" squeaked out the reptile Ward, "stand up for Bob Manners, for I know he stands up for you."
"Is that meant for a joke, or a matter of fact?" asked I.
"Fact! Fact! Bob, as your friend no doubt, stands up for you, whom he must so often hear abused."
"What! a mighty member of the senate fighting me, a silly woman, with my own weapons, seriously, and in sober anger, as though I were one of the lords of the creation and a commoner? Then, indeed, I must ask pardon of the honourable member, whom I must have sorely aggrieved. You say my little spitfire, that Lord Robert often hears me abused. All I answer is, look you at the breadth of his shoulders, before you presume to join the hue-and-cry against me in his presence. You would not like a horsepond: n'est-ce pas?"
"Keep them to it, keep up the war between them; it is so amusing. Harriette is the only match for Ward I ever met with," whispered Luttrell to my neighbour, his half-brother, Nugent.
"Does anybody mean to go to Elliston's masquerade?" asked Dick.
"Certainly," said Mrs. Armstrong. "It is to be a most brilliant thing, and the stage will exhibit all the decorations of Aladdin's Lamp, and I know not what besides; no dominoes, and a most comfortable, excellent supper."
"I dare not go," said Alvanly. "I am always afraid of getting into a row, at these sort of places and having to fight."