You, Captain Miles Warrington, have the honour of winning the good graces of a lady — of ever so many ladies — of the Duchess of Devonshire, let us say, of Mrs. Crew, of Mrs. Fitzherbert, of the Queen of Prussia, of the Goddess Venus, of Mademoiselle Hillisberg of the Opera — never mind of whom, in fine. If you win a lady’s good graces, do you always go to the mess and tell what happened?”

“Not such a fool, Squire!” says the Captain, surveying his side curl in the glass.

“Have you, Miss Theo, told your mother every word you said to Mr. Joe Blake, junior, in the shrubbery this morning?”

“Joe Blake, indeed!” cries Theo junior.

“And you, mademoiselle? That scented billet which came to you under Sir Thomas’s frank, have you told us all the letter contains? Look how she blushes! As red as the curtain, on my word! No, mademoiselle, we all have our secrets” (says the Squire, here making his best French bow). “No, Theo, there was nothing in the shrubbery — only nuts, my child! No, Miles, my son, we don’t tell all, even to the most indulgent of fathers — and if I tell what happened in a landau on the Hampstead Road, on the 25th of May, 1760, may the Chevalier Ruspini pull out every tooth in my head!”

“Pray tell, papa!” cries mamma: “or, as Jobson, who drove us, is in your service now, perhaps you will have him in from the stables! I insist upon your telling!”

“What is, then, this mystery?” asks mademoiselle, in her pretty French accent, of my wife.

“Eh, ma fille!” whispers the lady. “Thou wouldst ask me what I said? I said ‘Yes!’— behold all I said.” And so ’tis my wife has peached, and not I; and this was the sum of our conversation, as the carriage, all too swiftly as I thought, galloped towards Hampstead, and flew back again. Theo had not agreed to fly in the face of her honoured parents — no such thing. But we would marry no other person; no, not if we lived to be as old as Methuselah; no, not the Prince of Wales himself would she take. Her heart she had given away with her papa’s consent — nay, order — it was not hers to resume. So kind a father must relent one of these days; and, if George would keep his promise — were it now, or were it in twenty years, or were it in another world, she knew she should never break hers.

Hetty’s face beamed with delight when, my little interview over, she saw Theo’s countenance wearing a sweet tranquillity. All the doctor’s medicine has not done her so much good, the fond sister said. The girls went home after their act of disobedience. I gave up the place which I had held during a brief period of happiness by my dear invalid’s side. Hetty skipped back into her seat, and Charley on to his box. He told me in after days, that it was a very dull, stupid sermon he had heard. The little chap was too orthodox to love dissenting preachers’ sermons.

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