"As if there were much to guess!--when one has the honor of knowing every one of the young ladies, and more of their giddy partner and his strong points (and his weak ones)--than he himself!--and we know him to be an aspiring young man, for whom the best of all things is but just good enough--and in every thing that beguiles young fools to folly, who is there among our maidens that can vie with the daughter of our most worshipful and puissant Burgermeister?--Did I not lay hands on a certain drawing board a few days ago, that was ornamented with the name of Flora in choicest arabesques?"
"Your tea is strong, little mother, but your prophetic sense is weak;" said the young man with an affectation of pomposity; "of course I do not attempt to deny"--he proceeded with a passing blush--"that I really did at one time admire that smooth-faced little viper, who can slip so cleverly through a thousand things that would pose a man--and besides I may as well confess that I felt less provoked at my own mistakes, because it amused me to persuade myself that it was love that made me stupid, as it has made many a cleverer man before me. But to-night my eyes were opened, and I saw that between us two there never could be any question of love. If a certain muslin dress were but transparent enough for us to look into her left side, we should discover nothing, I lay my life, but a pair of ball-tablets and the last No. of the 'Modes'."
"And may I enquire what there is to justify a young gentleman in harbouring such dire suspicions? Is a helpless young woman to be argued out of her heart, simply because she may not hold it ready when certain persons ask her."
"Proofs--we have proofs of what we advance;" returned the lad very seriously; "I do not profess to be any very extraordinary judge of character--in fact I suffered myself to be made a fool of for a time. All this winter, you should have seen how this little Dalilah walked round my beard,--to use a figure of speech, for this trifle of yellow down is barely enough to swear by yet.
"Though I do dance deplorably, and never know whether it is a valse or schottisch, or whether I am to begin with the right foot or the left, still I was the acknowledged favorite. I was the eldest and biggest of the company, and might be looked upon as a full-grown man and champion." "A pike among the small fry;" observed his listener.
"As you please; she took me as full measure, and I let her--There are feminine perceptions," and he smiled good-humouredly, "which would fail to discern my manhood, even if I were to grow right through the ceiling, and look down upon them from the mazes of a bristling beard."
"Certainly," she retorted; "you are my own little Walter, and will be, if you live to be a grandfather. I shall always feel maternally responsible for your faults and follies--and there is every prospect of your keeping these maternal feelings in practice to the last day of your life."
"Very possibly;" and he laughed again. "But to-day I really did do you credit, I assure you, and was an honor to my education. Our ball queen, you must know, proud minx! found me all at once too mean for even the meanest services of her slaves. There was a young gentleman from the bar, who had been so condescending as to join us. When I came in, with my plain frock-coat and cotton gloves, he was pleased to take his eye-glass, and to stare at me from head to foot. He was in tails, and light-coloured kids, and naturally took the shine out of me, and would you have believed it?--she would hardly vouchsafe to let me take the tips of her fingers!--Oh! woman! woman, false and fair----"
"No sweeping condemnations, I beg."
"Oh! no. Heaven forbid! Of course there are angels among Eve's daughters. Some--angels with flaming swords. Others--simply angels, wearing their little wings neatly folded under innocent muslin dresses--"