"Can't say I did."
"Were there any visitors?"
"A dozen—you understand the description of visitors."
"No; what sort?"
"Fops in embryo, and aspirants after wit-laurels."
"It is well you went—they must have been thrown in the shade. For you, my dear Jacques, are undeniably the most perfect fop, and the greatest wit—in your own opinion—of this pleasant village of Devilsburg."
"No, no," replied his companion with well-affected modesty; "I a fop! I a pretender to wit? No, no, my dear Sir Asinus, you do me injustice: I am the simplest of mortals, and a very child of innocence. But I was speaking of Shadynook and the fairies of that domain. Never have I seen Belinda, or rather Belle-bouche, so lovely, and I here disdainfully repel your ridiculous calumny that she's in love with you, you great lump of presumption and overweening self-conceit! Philippa too was a pastoral queen—in silk and jewels—and around them they had gathered together a troop of shepherds from the adjoining grammar-school, called William and Mary College, of which I am an aspiring bachelor, and you were an ornament before your religious opinions caught from Fauquier drove you away like a truant school-boy. The shepherds were as usual very ridiculous, and I had no opportunity to whisper so much as a single word into my dear Belle-bouche's ear. Ah! how lovely she looked! By heaven, I'll go to-morrow and request her to designate some form of death for me to die—all for her sake!"
With which words the forlorn Jacques gazed languidly through the window.
At the same moment a bell was heard ringing in the direction of the College; and yawning first luxuriously, the young man rose.
"Lecture, by Jove!" he said.