'Why this seems like love at first sight! You are not acquainted, I suppose, with the Mowbrays.'
'Yes, my lady: from my infancy.'
'Oh, oh! Why, then to be sure you are intimate with this beauty; who absolutely eclipses us all. I assure you she is positively the belle of the day. I hear she has the very first offers. But you are not silly enough to act the dying swain? What, no answer? Well, well: I see how it is! But, as we never read in any of the morning papers of gentle youths who break their hearts for love, in the present ungallant age, you are in no great danger. Though I think I never saw any creature look more like what I should suppose one of your true lovers to be than you did just now: for, beside your speechless attitude, which was absolutely picturesque and significant, you were positively pale and red, and red and pale, almost as fast as the ticking of my watch. And even yet you are absolutely provoking. I cannot get a word from you!'
'Your ladyship's raillery quite overpowers me.'
'I declare I am positively surprised at what I have seen. Had a stranger been all of a sudden struck, the wonder would not have been absolutely so great: but it is positively unaccountable in you who are a familiar acquaintance of the family.'
'I cannot boast of that honor.'
'No, indeed! Why, do not you visit the Mowbrays?'
'I do not.'
'What, you are a dangerous man; and are forbidden the house? Well, I declare, I shall absolutely know your whole history in five minutes without your having positively told me a word.'
'Your ladyship has a lively imagination.'