Page:Lesbia Newman - Dalton - 1889.djvu/305

 ‘Delightful Fidge!’ exclaimed Hilda; ‘give me the refusal of her, Lesbie, if ever she’s for sale.’

‘Now, Lesbie, I haven’t had two words with you yet,’ said Lady Humnoddie, as she joined them. ‘What did you do in town this time? See anybody or anything?’

‘Yes, Lady Humnoddie, everybody and everything. That is, you know, everybody who is anybody, and everything that is anything. We saw a lot of fashionable marriages.’

‘Bless me, Lesbie! you’re turning dollymops like me! I shouldn’t have thought you’d care about fashionable marriages or fashionable anything. But where did you see them?—at St George’s, Hanover Square?’

‘Why no, Lady Humnoddie, not at St George’s, Hanover Square, but at St Mylitta’s, Northbourne Terrace. I omitted to mention that the marriages, though extremely fashionable, were only temporary, and that they appeared to be contracted mostly between married men and other men’s wives. But this may have been an optical illusion.’

This was said pointedly at Rose Lockstable, who was just then within earshot.

‘Don’t you believe that wicked girl’s stories, Lady Humnoddie,’ said she, coming forward. ‘Lesbie has no more sense of propriety than her monster Gossamer there.’

‘Oh yes, I have, Rose, much more,’ remonstrated Lesbia. ‘You should have seen Goss romping with Fidge’s great tom-cat Bollflax, yesterday morning. Boll was determined to get his teeth into Goss’s back, and at last he did. Goss didn’t seem to be the least hurt, quite the contrary; never saw a dog so good-natured in his play.’

‘Was there any mark afterwards?’ asked Rose.

‘Really, I didn’t look,’ replied Lesbia.

‘We are told in Holy Writ that the lion shall lie down with the lamb,’ observed Mr Bristley; ‘but when cats and