"Blest!" said Mr. Roundjacket; "since you came, madam, that may be very truly said."
A ghost of a smile lit, so to speak, upon Miss Lavinia's face, and then flew away. It was very plain that this inveterate man-hater had not closed her ears entirely to the voice of her enemy.
Roundjacket saw the impression he had made, and followed it up by gazing with admiring delight upon his visitor;—whose countenance, as soon as the solemnity was forgotten, did not by any means repel.
"It is a very great happiness," said the cavalier, seating himself on his stool, and, from habit, brandishing his ruler around Miss Lavinia's head,—"it is a great happiness, madam, when we poor professional slaves have the pleasure to see one of the divine sex—one of the ladies of creation, if I may use the phrase. Lawbooks and papers are—ahem!—very—yes, exceedingly—"
"Dull?" suggested the lady, fanning herself with a measured movement of the hand.
"Oh! worse, worse! These objects, madam, extinguish all poetry, and gallantry, and elevated feeling in our unhappy breasts."
"Indeed?"
"Yes, my dear madam, and after a while we become so dead to all that is beautiful and charming in existence"—that was from Mr. Roundjacket's poem—"that we are incapable even of appreciating the delightful society of the fairest and most exquisite of the opposite sex."
Miss Lavinia shook her head with a ghostly smile.
"I'm afraid you are very gallant, Mr. Roundjacket."