'Yet that innocence of dissipated life charms me.'
'I am excessively amused! But you cannot—dare not, encourage this idea. Love him—oh, Laura, such a mésalliance! the imaginary chief of a beggarly burned up tract in the West Highlands. The last of the Mohicans!'
'Mésalliance!' reiterated Laura, with an air of pique; 'what is our family, which dates from the Restoration, when compared to his, which, for aught that I know, dates from the days of Ossian.'
'Immensely superior, I should say—for the gentlemen of Ossian's time knew deuced little about making up a book on the Oaks, or knowing the points of the winner of the Derby, as I do—or of Bank-stock, or shares or railway scrip, and so forth, as Sir Horace does.'
'But then, Fanny dear, think of what I owe him—that dreadful rescue of yesterday? Oh, there is nothing I admire so much as bravery in a man!'
'But this is a boy.'
'Well—a brave boy—and are we much more than girls?'
'Such a little sophist it is! If you run on thus I shall end by loving that tall fellow who hunts the foxes. I own to be immensely delighted with him. Is he not a love of a man, with his magnificent black beard?'
'You have spoken more of him than I have done of his master.'
'Perhaps I am in love with him,' said Fanny, with a roguish expression in her beautiful eyes.