. "Won't you
have some of this custard?"

"And you have been bowing to her, too! You look as if your negus was not
nice," harmlessly continues Miss Hetty.

"It is not very good negus," says Harry, with a gulp.

"And the custard is bad too! I declare 'tis made with bad eggs!" cries
Miss Lambert.

"I wish, Hester, that the entertainment and the company had been better
to your liking," says poor Harry.

"'Tis very unfortunate; but I dare say you could not help it," cries the
young woman, tossing her little curly head.

Mr. Warrington groaned in spirit, perhaps in body, and clenched his
fists and his teeth. The little torturer artlessly continued, "You seem
disturbed: shall we go to my mamma?"

"Yes, let us go to your mamma," cries Mr. Warrington, with glaring eyes
and a "Curse you, why are you always standing in the way?" to an unlucky
waiter.

"La! Is that the way you speak in Virginia?" asks Miss Pertness.

"We are rough there sometimes, madam, and can't help being disturbed,"
he says slowly, and with a quiver in his whole frame, looking down upon
her with fire flashing out of his eyes. Hetty saw nothing distinctly
afterwards, and until she came to her mother. Never had she seen Harry
look so handsome or so noble.

"You look pale, child!" cries mamma, anxious, like all pavidae matres.

"'Tis the cold--no, I mean the heat. Thank you, Mr. Warrington." And
she makes him a faint curtsey, as Harry bows a tremendous bow, and
walks elsewhere amongst his guests. He hardly knows what is happening at
first, so angry is he.

He is aroused by another altercation, between his aunt and the Duchess
of Queensberry. When the royal favourite passed the Duchess, her Grace
gave her Ladyship an awful stare out of eyes that were not so bright now
as they had been in the young days when they "set the world on fire;"
turned round with an affected laugh to her neighbour, and shot at
the jolly Hanoverian lady a ceaseless fire of giggles and sneers.
The Countess pursued her game at cards, not knowing, or not choosing,
perhaps, to know how her enemy was gibing at her. There had been a feud
of many years' date between their Graces of Queensberry and the family
on the throne.

"How you all bow down to the idol! Don't tell me! You are as bad as
the rest, my good Madame Bernstein!" the Duchess says. "Ah, what a true
Christian country this is! and how your dear first husband, the Bishop,
would have liked to see such a sight!"

"Forgiv