- ducted an amiable conversation, not in the mere
language of the lips alone, but in the more ardent one of glances. The waistcoat of his lordship grew sigh-deranged, and mighty soon. Every time she fretted up her eyebrows, he paid her a compliment upon 'em; sometimes she repaid him with a repartee, sometimes provoked him to another by a pouting dimple in her mouth. The glass went often to his lips, and the lady was astute enough to encourage his industry without assisting in it.
"Barbara," my aunt whispered, with a severity that made me shiver, "I am afraid your Miss Canticle is a minx."
"My dear aunt!" says I.
"Barbara, I said a minx," the dowager resumed. "The way she hath set her cap at his lordship is disgraceful."
"Set her cap?" I repeated, in deep perplexity, "my dear aunt, I do not know the phrase, and at least it must be provincial."
"Coquets, then," says my aunt, more sternly than before.
"Coquets?" says I; "really, aunt, I am at a loss."
"Barbara, she is flirtish," pursued my aunt, who, as I have said already, was a dreadful engine when once she was set in motion.
"That means, my dearest aunt," says I, with a simplicity wonderful to hear, "one who attempts to trifle with the affections of another, does it not?"
At the word affections I blushed divinely. Yes,
