"Considerably better, Miss, especially in the way of republican comfort."
Miss Ring, like all belles, detested the word republican, their vocation being clearly to exclusion, and she pouted a little affectedly.
"I should distrust the quality of such comfort, sir," she said, with point; "but, are the rooms at all comparable with the rooms in Apsley House, for instance?"
"My dear Miss, Apsley House is a toll-gate lodge, compared to this mansion! I doubt if there be a dwelling in all England half as magnificent--indeed, I cannot imagine any thing more brilliant and rich."
Aristabulus was not a man to do things by halves, and it was a point of honour with him to know something of every thing. It is true he no more could tell where Apsley House is, or whether it was a tavern or a gaol, than he knew half the other things on which he delivered oracular opinions; but when it became necessary to speak, he was not apt to balk conversation from any ignorance, real or affected. The opinion he had just given, it is true, had a little surpassed Miss Ring's hopes; for the next thing, in her ambition to being a belle, and of "entertaining" gentlemen, was to fancy she was running her brilliant career in an orbit of fashion that lay parallel to that of the "nobility and gentry" of Great Britain.
"Well, this surpasses my hopes," she said, "although I was aware we are nearly on a level with the more improved tastes of Europe: still, I thought we were a little inferior to that part of the world, yet."
"Inferior, Miss! That is a word that should never pass your lips; you are inferior to nothing, whether in Europe or America, Asia or Africa."
As Miss Ring had been accustomed to do most of the flattering herself, as behoveth a belle, she began to be disconcerted with the directness of the compliments of Aristabulus, who was disposed to 'make hay while the sun shines;' and she turned, in a little confusion, to the captain, by way of relief; we say confusion, for the young lady, although so liable to be misunderstood, was not actually impudent, but merely deceived in the relations of things; or, in other words, by some confusion in usages, she had hitherto permitted herself to do that in society, which female performers sometimes do on the stage; enact the part of a man.
"You should tell Mr. Bragg, sir," she said, with an appealing look at the captain, "that flattery is a dangerous vice, and one altogether unsuited to a Christian."
"It is, indeed, marm, and one that I never indulge in. No one under my orders, can accuse me of flattery."