"How do you like my cousin, Polly?" he asked at last.
"Your cousin, Miss Arundel?"
"Yes."
"She is very handsome."
"Yes, I suppose so," the young man answered carelessly. "Everybody says that Livy's handsome; but it's rather a cold style of beauty, isn't it? A little too much of the Pallas Athenë about it for my taste. I like those girls in blue, with the crinkly auburn hair,––there's a touch of red in it in the light,––and the dimples. You've a dimple, Polly, when you smile."
Miss Marchmont blushed as she received this information, and her brown eyes wandered away, looking very earnestly at the pretty girls in blue. She looked at them with a strange interest, eager to discover what it was that Edward admired.
"But you haven't answered my question, Polly," said Mr. Arundel. "I am afraid you have been drinking too much wine, Miss Marchmont, and muddling that sober little head of yours with the fumes of your papa's tawny port. I asked you how you liked Olivia."
Mary blushed again.
"I don't know Miss Arundel well enough to like her––yet," she answered timidly.
"But shall you like her when you've known her longer? Don't be jesuitical, Polly. Likings and dislikings are instantaneous and instinctive. I liked you before I'd eaten half a dozen mouthfuls of the roll you buttered for me at that breakfast in Oakley Street, Polly. You don't like my cousin Olivia, miss; I can see that very plainly. You're jealous of her."