Page:Lady Barbarity; a romance (IA ladybarbarityrom00snai).pdf/175

 "Huh! you're not ugly," was her verdict.

"And you a man?" I cries, for I could not bring myself to consider that a veritable member of the Sex of Victims could damn me with faint praise of this sort.

"Well, Bab," he says, "you are not quite in my style, you see."

"Your style?" says I, aghast. I, the toast of the Prince of Wales, and the source of a thousand sonnets, not quite in the style of him! There was a deal of whim and quaintness in the boy.

"I like 'em clinging," says he, modestly.

"You like 'em clinging. You'll perhaps explain," says I, flicking my fan perilously near his ears.

"I prefer the twining ivy to the big-eyed dog-daisy or the bold chrysanthemum."

The fan descended on him smartly.

"I can suffer your impudence easier than your taste," I sighed; "but both should be prayed for in the churches."

"Kissable and kind," says he, "there's nought to beat 'em. A modest violet of a downcast diffidence, prettily sigheth like a wind of spring; obedient to a breath; trembles at a look; thinks my lord Me the finest person under God. You know the kind I mean, Bab; plenty of blush about 'em—the very opposite of you."

"My lord Me," cries I, delightedly, "that's you, my lad, outside and in. It hits you to the very eyebrow, and Man also."