Page:Lady Barbarity; a romance (IA ladybarbarityrom00snai).pdf/188

 His old lordship could not get a word in ere I had led him to the lovely minx who was entertaining my aunt the dowager in such a shocking manner. Mon père put on his glasses with the most killing simper, quizzed the handsome dog with high-bred insolence, and said:

"My dear being, how do you do?"

The old gentleman bowed till you might have heard his gout creak.

Miss Prue flashed her eyes straight through him, and replied in a tone whose affectation was by no means inferior to his own:

"My lord of Long Acre! My emotion overcomes me."

Mine overcame me also. For she dared to whip out a dainty handkerchief of cambric with the device "B. G." woven into a monogram upon one corner. This she flirted and coquetted a quarter of a minute, but contrived to play her saucy eyes behind it in such a style as implied that she was not one half so youthful as she looked. His lordship was delighted, but the dowager grew as wintry as her locks, and endeavoured to arrange our places at the table in such a way that Miss Prue and he should be severely kept apart. My papa, however, was much too early a sort of bird to be out-manœuvred thus. Being a trifle deaf, 'twas not unnatural that he should utterly ignore the dispositions of my aunt. The inference was, of course, that he had not heard them. Therefore Miss Prue and he were somehow seated side by side, and con