As the servitor left the room, Mrs. Glendinning spoke. 'My dear Pierre, how often have I begged you never to permit your hilariousness to betray you into overstepping the exact line of propriety in your intercourse with servants. Dates' look was a respectful reproof to you just now. You must not call Dates, My fine fellow. He is a fine fellow, a very fine fellow, indeed; but there is no need of telling him so at my table. It is very easy to be entirely kind and pleasant to servants, without the least touch of any shade of transient good-fellowship with them.'
'Well, sister, no doubt you are altogether right; after this I shall drop the fine, and call Dates nothing but fellow;—Fellow, come here!—how will that answer?'
'Not at all, Pierre—but you are a Romeo, you know, and so for the present I pass over your nonsense.'
'Romeo! oh, no. I am far from being Romeo,' sighed Pierre. 'I laugh, but he cried; poor Romeo! alas, Romeo! woe is me, Romeo! he came to a very deplorable end, did Romeo, sister Mary.'
'It was his own fault, though.'
'Poor Romeo!'
'He was disobedient to his parents.'
'Alas, Romeo!'
'He married against their particular wishes.'
'Woe is me, Romeo!'
'But you, Pierre, are going to be married before long, I trust, not to a Capulet, but to one of our own Montagues; and so Romeo's evil fortune will hardly be yours. You will be happy.'
'The more miserable Romeo!'
'Don't be so ridiculous, brother Pierre; so you are going to take Lucy that long ride among the hills this morning? She is a sweet girl; a most lovely girl.'
'Yes, that is rather my opinion, sister Mary.—By
