Page:The Semi-detached House.djvu/48

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THE SEMI-DETACHED HOUSE.

sons, and she did the honours of Willis' gravity with much pleasantry, and infinite want of tact, once arriving at calling him "you funny man," which threw Rose into an irrepressible fit of the giggles.

It was obvious that Willis and Baron Sampson were leagued in some important speculation, which had brought about a degree of intimacy that might have been friendship, if either of them had been susceptible of that sentiment, and they would have liked to talk shares, and capital, and investments, if they had met with any encouragement. But Baron Moses was by way of being a fast young man about town, and bent on astonishing the Hopkinsons by anecdotes of the clubs, and the opera, and Prince Albert; and the sémillante Baroness shook her black ringlets, and also her ear-rings, and chains, and bracelets to that extent, that they formed quite a musical accompaniment to her assertion that business was not to be attended to. She came for fresh air and fresh conversation.

"Do tell me something about Dulham,