Heartsease; Or, The Brother's Wife. Yonge Charlotte Mary

take care of her own, if she has one.’

      ‘Is she so much admired?’

      ‘Of course she is. You do not often see her style, and she talks and goes on at no end of a rate.’

      ‘I remember how she grew excited at the ball, after disliking the prospect.’

      ‘Is this mere general admiration,’ asked John, ‘or anything more serious?’

      ‘Upon my word, I cannot say. There is no earnest on her part. She will rattle on with a poor fellow one night as if she had eyes for no one else, then leave him in the lurch the next. She cares not a rush for any of them, only wants to be run after. As to her followers, some of them are really smitten, I fancy. There was Fitzhugh, but he is an old hand, and can pay her in her own coin, and that sober-faced young Mervyn—it is a bad case with him. In fact, there is a fresh one whenever she goes out—a Jenny Dennison in high life—but the most bitten of all, I take it, is Lord St. Erme.’

      ‘Lord St. Erme!’ exclaimed both auditors in a breath.

      ‘Ay. She met him at that breakfast, walked about the gardens with him all the morning, and my mother wrote to my aunt, I believe, that she was booked. Then at this Bryanstone soiree, the next night, Fitzhugh was in the ascendant—poor St. Erme could not so much as gain a look.’

      ‘So he is in London!’ said Violet. ‘Do tell me what he is like.’

      ‘Like a German music-master,’ said Arthur. ‘As queer a figure as ever I saw. Keeps his hair parted in the middle, hanging down in long lank rats’ tails, meant to curl, moustache ditto, open collar turned down, black ribbon tie.’