I’m sure, with the most charming solicitude possible!

I noticed of her, that, whenever she was bent on using her sharpest weapons—of “society’s” armoury and, methinks, the devil’s forge-mark!—she always put on an extra gloss of politeness over her normal smooth and varnished style of address.

I didn’t like it, either.

Civility may be all very well in its way, but I cannot say that I admire that way of knocking a man down with a kid glove. It is a treacherous mode of attack; and very much resembles the plan Mr Chucks, the boatswain in Peter Simple, used to adopt when correcting the ship’s boys.

That gentleman would, if you recollect, courteously beckon an offender to approach him, doffing his hat the while as if speaking to the quarter-deck; and then, begging the trembling youngster’s pardon for detaining him, would proceed to inform him in the “politest and most genteel manner in the world” that he was “the d—d son of a sea cook,”—subsequently rattaning him furiously, amidst a plethora of expletives before which the worst Billingsgate faded into insignificance.

I may be singular in the fancy, but, do you know, I prefer civil words to be accompanied with civil deeds, and contrariwise:—the “poison of asps” does not go well with honied accents!

“Pray take a seat, Mr Lorton,” said Mrs Clyde. “I was expecting you to call; and waited in, on purpose not to miss seeing you. My daughter has told me,”—she went on, taking the initiative, ere I had a chance to speak—cutting the ground from under my feet, as it were, and rendering my task each moment more arduous—“My daughter has told me that she and you were talking some nonsense together last night, which it is best for all parties, my dear Mr Lorton, should be at once forgotten! You’ll agree with me, I’m sure?”

And she looked at me with a steady gaze of determination and set purpose in her eyes, before which I quailed.

“You will agree with me, I’m sure, Mr Lorton,”—she repeated again, after a pause, as I was so bewildered by her flank attack that I could not get out a word at first. I declare to you, I only sat looking at her in hopeless dismay, powerless—idiotic, in fact!

“But I love Min, Mrs Clyde,”—I stammered—“and she has promised—”

“Dear me! This is quite delicious,” laughed Mrs Clyde—a cold sneering laugh, which made me shiver as if cold water were 

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