“By Saint Patrick, you are strangely untwinlike!” remarked the stranger frankly; “never saw I two birds from one nest with less resemblance; one a pigeon and the other—”
“What, your honor?” demanded Lady Betty roguishly, while Alice plucked at her skirts in genuine confusion and fear.
“A bird of Paradise,” said he gallantly, kissing the tips of his fingers to her.
Lady Betty hung her head, simpering like the veriest country girl.
“Faith, sir,” she said, fingering her kerchief, “I don’t know what that is. Is it poultry?”
“It has wings, my dear,” he replied smiling, “but, in this case, they are only figurative.”
“La, sir!” cried Lady Betty, “what’s that? It sounds like something strange.”
“It’s a figure of speech, my girl,” he replied, a daring smile in his gray eyes as he drew a step nearer and Betty retreated a step, partly drawn by Alice; “but eyes like stars and cheeks like roses do not belong to the barnyard.”
Her ladyship, suspecting that she had betrayed herself, bridled a little, but her love of mischief kept her from flight.
“Faith!” she said, looking down, “you fine gentlemen talk so finely that a poor maid cannot follow you. Go to the tavern, sir, and there your worship will find a listener after your own heart, for they do say that saucy Polly can talk up to Lord Spencer himself, and he’s the most learned man in England, sir; and, indeed, I do believe that all the others that ever knew half as much died of it immediately and were buried! Go to the tavern, sir, and good cheer to you and good by,” and her ladyship dropped another awkward courtesy.