"Coat-buttons, aunt!"
"Mercy on us! Buttons! In the arbour! With a man——"
"Major d'Arcy, our neighbour, aunt. Major, my aunt, Lady Belinda Damain."
Hereupon the Major bowed a trifle awkwardly since Lady Betty still had him in leash, while her aunt, rising, sank into a curtsey that was a wonder to behold and thereafter sighed and languished like the faded beauty she was.
"My undutiful niece, sir," said she, "hath no eye to decorum, she is for ever shocking the proprieties and me—alack, 'tis a naughty baggage—a romping hoyden, a wicked puss——"
"Aunt Belinda, dare to call me a 'puss' again and I'll scratch!"
"And you are Major d'Arcy—of the Guards?"
"Late of the Third, madam."
"Related to the d'Arcys of Sussex?"
"Very distantly, I believe."