during the entire interview."

Marmaduke's face betrays the intense delight all men feel when receiving flattery from the beloved one. Perhaps, indeed, he appears a trifle sillier than the generality of them, incense coming from me being so totally unexpected. I know by his eyes he would give anything to kiss me, were it not for shame sake and the gaping crowd.

"Is your Lady Alicia very terrific?" I ask, fearfully and then, almost before he has time to answer my question, we are standing before a tall, benevolent-looking woman of forty-five, with a hooked nose, and a scarlet feather in her bonnet, and I am bowing and smirking at Lady Alicia Slate-Gore.

She is more than civil—she is radiant. She taps me on the cheek with her fan, and calls me "my dear," and asks me a hundred questions in a breath. She taps Marmaduke on the arm and asks him what he means by making love to a child who ought to be in her nursery dreaming fairy-tales.

At this Marmaduke laughs, and says I am older than I look—for which I am grateful to him. 

"Old!" says my lady, with a rapid bird like glance at me. "The world will soon be upside down. Am I to consider fourteen old?"

"Phyllis will soon be nineteen," says Marmaduke; for which I feel still more grateful, as it was only two months ago I attained my eighteenth year.

"Indeed! indeed! You should give your friends your receipt, child. You have stolen a good five years from Father Time, and just when you least want it. Now, if you could only give us old people a written prescription," etc., etc.

Marmaduke leaves us to go and receive some other guests, and her ladyship still chatters on to me; while I, catching the infection of her spirits, chatter back again to her, until she declares me vastly amusing, and is persuaded Marmaduke has gained a prize in the life-lottery.

Then Bobby De Vere comes up, a little later, and addresses me in his usual florid style; so does fat Mr. Hastings; and presently Lady Alicia appears again, bringing with her a tall, gaunt man with a prickly beard, who, she says, is desirous of being introduced. He is probably a well-intentioned person, but he is very deaf, and has evidently mistaken the whole affair. For example, after a moment or two he electrifies me by saying, "You are fortunate, Mrs. Carrington, in having so magnificent a day for your fete."

I color painfully, stammer 

 Prev. P 73/313 next