"Oh fie, child! You ought always to have your pincushion about you. Always, always, child!" fanning himself with increased rapidity.
Douglas Kinnaird was unfeelingly severe on almost everybody in their turn. To one gay fashionable mother, whose name I have forgotten, he said, "Why Missis, you've been hawking them girls all over the world for these last six years, and sin they be made to hong upon hond like, mayhap they'd go off better all of a lump, if you was to tie um up in bunches you see, as they do cherries, look ye. I manes no offence."
Fanny, in her housemaid's dress, and with her natural, lively humour, made an excellent companion for Kinnaird, who appeared much pleased with her and delighted to draw her out, although he had not any idea who she was. The fact is, we had determined not to unmask or make ourselves known to anybody during the whole evening.
Meyler looked very interesting and handsome, in his blue domino of rich Gros de Naples. I had given him leave to find me out if he could, and I guessed that he was busily but vainly employed in the pursuit. I waltzed and danced quadrilles with half the young ladies and gentlemen in the room.
"Is that a boy, or a girl, think you?" was the question from every mouth, as Julia and I passed them. "The leg is a boy's, the finest I ever saw," said one; "but then that foot, where shall we find a boy with such delicate feet and hands?" Still it remained a puzzle, and everybody seemed undecided as to the sex of Julia.
"Who can they be?" said Mrs. Scott Waring to Berkeley Craven.
"I want to know myself," answered he; "for I am in love with the lady's feet."
"I think they are both ladies," returned Mrs. Scott Waring.
"Pray who made that lovely shoe to fit that pretty foot so charmingly?" Berkeley Craven asked me.