"Then I trust they were not packed off on purpose that you might not see them?" observed the young poet.
"Quite the reverse, Vernon, I assure you, for I'm quite confident they were so packed off in order that they mightn't see me."
"You surprise me indeed—can it be possible that one so affable and open-hearted as our squire here appears to be, should hesitate to let his daughters see so harmless a specimen of the human race as my particular friend Mr Francis Trevelyan? But ah! I see how it is," Vernon continued, and his countenance fell as he said so. "I see how it is—he doubts our being gentlemen; a circumstance quite sufficient to account for the absence of the young ladies."
"Don't let that notion trouble you," interposed our little hero; "your particular friend, Mr Francis Trevelyan, as you have been pleased to style him, has removed every unfavourable impression a first glance of your two yards of humanity might have produced—you know the old saying, 'Show me your associates and I'll tell you what you are.'"
"Then," interposed Vernon, "the impression here must be, that I'm one of the most impudent dogs living."
"Nothing of the kind," resumed Frank; "that is, if they judge of you by your humble servant, whom they consider an exceedingly modest young man, which was the sole reason the two girls were kept out of the way, and sent off so early to bed; though by the by I'm almost ashamed to say"—
"Don't talk of your shame, Frank," interrupted Vernon, "a very different kind of thing, though too often confounded with modesty. It's the latter—It's your modesty—I wish to hear about."
"Why, the plain state of the case," rejoined Frank, "was, that our good-natured friend the squire, from an imperfect knowledge of the natural boldness of my disposition, (call it impudence, if you will,) supposed me incapable of facing the battery of laughter my extraordinary appearance would have exposed me to, had I come within view of his fair daughters."
"Your appearance is queer enough at all times I must confess," observed Vernon, "and still more so in your travelling costume; but still hardly enough so, I should have thought, to have produced quite so powerful an effect as you have just mentioned."
"You wouldn't say so, or have thought so, either, had you seen the strange figure of fun I made. Just now for a moment fancy my limited proportions enveloped in the squire's ample toggery—(who more than makes up in breadth all he wants in height,)—only fancy me so attired and where could you look for a more complete personification of a living scarecrow?"