"And pray what is that?"
"As if you did not know! Come now, you must pay the penalty of asking for a compliment. Talk about breeding and good birth, and that stuff! Why, look at your hands and then look at mine. Put your fingers between mine—both hands, both hands—that's the way. Now just feel my great clumsy things, and then see how lovely yours are—as clear as wax-tapers, and just touched with rose, and every nail with a fairy gift, and pointed like an almond. A 'nameless nobody' indeed! What nameless nobody ever had such nails? By way of contrast examine mine."
"Oh but you bite yours shockingly, Rodney. I am sure that you do, though I never saw you. You must be cured of that dreadful trick."
"That shall be your first job, Delushy, when you are Mrs Rodney. Now for another great sign of birth. Do you see any peak to my upper lip?"
"No, I can't say I do. But how foolish you are! I ought to be crying, and you make me laugh."
"Then just let me show you the peak to yours. Honour bright—and no mean advantages—that is to say if I can help it. Oh, here's that blessed Moxy coming! May the Frenchmen rob her hen-roost! Now just one promise, darling, darling; just one little promise. To-morrow I go to most desperate battles, and lucky to come home with one arm and one leg. Therefore, promise a solemn promise to have no one in the world but me."
"I think," said the maid, with her lips to his ear, in the true old coaxing fashion, "that I may very well promise that. But I will promise another thing too. And that is, not to have even you, until your dear mother and good uncle come to me and ask me. And that can never never be."