"Have promised? What do you mean, sir? I think you are forgetting yourself!" and Miss Sibyl Merridew lifted up her graceful head with a little air of hauteur that was by no means unbecoming to her piquant beauty.
But young Sir Harry Willing was not to be put down by this pretty little provincial,—not he; and so, lifting up his head with an air of hauteur, he said to Miss Sibyl,—
"I crave Miss Merridew's pardon, but perhaps if she will reflect a moment she will recall what she said to me yester morning when I begged her to give me the pleasure of dancing the last minuet with her to-night."
Waving her great plumy feather fan to and fro, Sibyl looked across it at her companion, and answered in a little sweetly impertinent tone,—
"But I never reflect."
"So I should judge, madam," retorted the youth, wrathfully; "but perhaps," he went on, "if Miss Merridew will deign to bestow a glance upon this"—and the young fellow pulled from his pocket a gold-mounted card and letter case, out of which he took a tablet upon which was written: "Met Miss Sibyl Merridew this morning on the mall. She promised to dance the last minuet with me to-morrow night. Mem. Send roses if they are to be had in the town!"
Sibyl blushed as she read this. Then lifting the flowers—Sir Harry's roses—to her face for a moment, she dropped a demure courtesy and said, with a gleam of fun in her eyes,—
"If Sir Harry finds that it is necessary for him to recall his friends and engagements by memorandum notes, he certainly cannot expect an untutored provincial maid, who carries no such orderly appliance about with her, to charge her mind unaided."
"An untutored provincial maid!" exclaimed Sir Harry, all his wrath extinguished by her pretty recognition of his flowers and his admiration of her ready wit,—"an untutored provincial maid! By my faith, Miss Sibyl, you'd put to shame many a court dame. But, hark, what's that? As I live, the musicians are tuning up for the minuet." And smilingly he held out his hand to her.
