Surprised at her manner, he held it in his hand.
"Put it in your pocket," added she, in a hurrying voice, "else my sister may see it, and ask what it is!"
Full of wonder, he obeyed her; and the little beauty, having executed her scheme, seemed quite intoxicated with delight. When he was preparing to withdraw, she called to him, and asked when he should visit Lady Tinemouth.
"This evening, madam."
"Then," returned she, "tell her ladyship I shall come and sit half- an-hour with her to-night; and here," added she, running up to him, "present her that rose, with my love." Whilst she put it into his hand, she whispered in a low voice, "and you will tell me what you think of the verses I have given you."
Thaddeus colored and bowed. He hurried out of the house into the street, as if by that haste he could have gotten out of a dilemma to which he feared all this foolish mystery might be only the introduction.
Though of all men in the world he was perhaps the least inclined to vanity, yet he must have been one of the most stupid had he not been convinced by this time of the dangerous attachment of Lady Sara. Added to that painful certainty he now more than dreaded a similar though a slighter folly in Miss Euphemia.
Can a man see himself the daily object of a pair of melting eyes, hear everlasting sighs at his entrance and departure, day after day receive tender though covert addresses about disinterested love, can he witness all this, and be sincere when he affirms it is the language of indifference? If that be possible, the Count Sobieski has no pretensions of modesty. He comprehended the "discoursing" of Miss Euphemia's "eye;" also the tendency of the love-sick mottoes which, under various excuses, she put into his hand; and with many a pitying smile of contempt he contemplated her childish absurdity.
A few days prior to that in which she made this appointment with Thaddeus, she had presented to him another of her posies, which ran thus: "Frighted love, like a wild beast, shakes the wood in which it hides."
Thaddeus almost laughed at the oddity of the conceit.