in civility to throw the recipient into a fever of confusion?"
"One can't help wondering at some things," she persisted.
"Wondering at marvels of your own manufacture. Are you ready at last?"
"Yes; let me take your arm."
"I would rather not: we will walk side by side."
When she took my arm, she always leaned upon me her whole weight; and, as I was not a gentleman, or her lover, I did not like it.
"There, again!" she cried. "I thought, by offering to take your arm, to intimate approbation of your dress and general appearance: I meant it as a compliment."
"You did? You meant, in short, to express that you are not ashamed to be seen in the street with me? That if Mrs. Cholmondeley should be fondling her lap-dog at some window, or Colonel de Hamal picking his teeth in a balcony, and should catch a glimpse of us, you would not quite blush for your companion?"
"Yes," said she, with that directness which was her best point—which gave an honest plainness to
