Page:Lady Barbarity; a romance (IA ladybarbarityrom00snai).pdf/176

 "To be sure," saye he, with grandeur, "if it hits Me, it hits Man also. I am Man, and Man is Me."

"And both are the vainest things that breathe," says I.

"Except new gowns," he retorted, villainously.

"Pish," says I, "I will not bandy with you. There is only one thing more deplorable in nature than a woman arguing, and that is a boy who is impertinent."

The time antecedent to the supper bell we spent with profit. To-night I must be brilliant if I was to make a conquest of a hard-bit officer, who knew the world and Madam Ogle. I suggested, therefore, that I was put through a rehearsal now, to test the scope of my abilities and school them to the part they had to play.

"Prue," says I, "I must ask you to change your alias for twenty minutes. You are to be Captain Grantley, and I dear Lady Barbara. We are to suppose this chamber to be the library, where you sit in weariness, misery, and rage, with your shattered knee strapped to a board. There is a blue paper in your custody which you have sworn to send to London if the prisoner is not retaken in a week. I enter to make a conquest of you, with the object of exciting you to destroy the document you hold. Now, Prue, sit down and turn yourself into the Captain, and I will woo you with a greater ardour than I ever wooed a man before."

"And by Jupiter and Mars, dear Lady Barbara,