he hero.

"Do you bet?" said Mrs. Mount.

"Only on myself," returned Richard.

"Bravo!" cried his Bellona, and her eye sent a lingering delirious
sparkle across her brimming glass at him.

"I'm sure you're a safe one to back," she added, and seemed to scan his
points approvingly.

Richard's cheeks mounted bloom.

"Don't you adore champagne?" quoth the dame with a bosom to Ripton.

"Oh, yes!" answered Ripton, with more candour than accuracy, "I always
drink it."

"Do you indeed?" said the enraptured bosom, ogling him. "You would be a
friend, now! I hope you don't object to a lady joining you now and then.
Champagne's my folly."

A laugh was circling among the ladies of whom Adrian was the centre;
first low, and as he continued some narration, peals resounded, till
those excluded from the fun demanded the cue, and ladies leaned behind
gentlemen to take it up, and formed an electric chain of laughter. Each
one, as her ear received it, caught up her handkerchief, and laughed,
and looked shocked afterwards, or looked shocked and then spouted
laughter. The anecdote might have been communicated to the bewildered
cavaliers, but coming to a lady of a demurer cast, she looked shocked
without laughing, and reproved the female table, in whose breasts it was
consigned to burial: but here and there a man's head was seen bent, and
a lady's mouth moved, though her face was not turned toward him, and
a man's broad laugh was presently heard, while the lady gazed
unconsciously before her, and preserved her gravity if she could
escape any other lady's eyes; failing in which, handkerchiefs were
simultaneously seized, and a second chime arose, till the tickling force
subsided to a few chance bursts.

What nonsense it is that my father writes about women! thought Richard.
He says they can't laugh, and don't understand humour. It comes, he
reflected, of his shutting himself from the world. And the idea that
he was seeing the world, and feeling wiser, flattered him. He talked
fluently to his dangerous Bellona. He gave her some reminiscences of
Adrian's whimsies.

"Oh!" said she, "that's your tutor, is it!" She eyed the young man as if
she thought he must go far and fast.

Ripton felt a push. "Look at that," said the bosom, fuming utter
disgust. He was directed to see a manly arm round the waist of the
mignonne. "Now that's what I don't like in company," the bosom inflated
to observe with sufficient emphasis. "She always will all