"Indeed!" replied Jane, her manner becoming more serious, "and in what did these omissions consist?"
"Why, in the first place, while we were conversing,——"
"He could converse, then?" said Jane, interrupting her friend.
"O, no, I beg pardon! While we were trying to converse—for among his other defects is an inability to talk to a lady on any subject of interest—I dropped my handkerchief, on purpose, of course, but he never offered to lift it for me; indeed, I doubt whether he saw it at all."
"Then, Cara, how could you expect him to pick it up for you, if he did not see it?"
"But he ought to have seen it. He should have had his eyes about him; and so should every gentleman who sits by or is near a lady. I know one that never fails."
"And pray, who is the perfect gentleman?" asked Jane smiling. "Is he one of my acquaintances?"
"Certainly he is. I mean Charles Wilton."
"He is, I must confess, different from Walter Gray," Jane remarked, drily.
"I hope he is!" said Cara, tossing her head, for she felt that something by no means complimentary was implied in the equivocal remark of her friend.