nothing in the world, as far as
she can judge.

"I never meet him without thinking of Master Shallow," he says, rather
witheringly. "May I ask how he managed to make himself so endurable to
you?"

"In many ways. Strange as it may appear to you, he can read poetry
really charmingly. Byron, Tennyson, even Shakespeare, he has read to me
until," says Cecil, with enthusiasm, "he has actually brought the tears
into my eyes."

"I can fancy it," says Sir Penthony, with much disgust, adjusting his
eyeglass with great care in his right eye, the better to contemplate
the approach of this modern hero. "I can readily believe it. He seems
to me the very personification of a 'lady's man,'--a thorough-paced
carpet knight. When," says Sir Penthony, with careful criticism, "I
take into consideration the elegant slimness of his lower limbs and the
cadaverous leanness of his under-jaw, I can almost see him writing
sonnets to his mistress's eyebrow."

"If"--severely--"there is one thing that absolutely repels me, it is
sarcasm. Don't you be sarcastic. It doesn't suit you. I merely said Mr.
Lowry probably feels at a loss, now his mornings are unoccupied, as he
generally spent them with me in town."

"Happy he. Were those mornings equally agreeable to you?"

"They were indeed. But, as you evidently don't admire Talbot, you can
hardly be expected to sympathize with my enjoyment."

"I merely hinted I thought him a conceited coxcomb; and so I do. Ah,
Lowry, how d'ye do? Charmed to see you. Warm evening, is it not?"

"You are come at last, Mr. Lowry," Cecil says, with sweet meaning in
her tone, smiling up at him as he stands beside her, with no eyes but
for her. "What a glorious day we have had! It makes one sad to think it
cannot continue. I do so hate winter."

"Poor winter!" says Lowry, rather insipidly. "It has my most sincere
sympathy. As for the day, I hardly noticed its beauties: I found it
long."

"The sign of an idler. Did you find it _very_ long?"

"Very," says Lowry, with a look that implies his absence from her side
was the sole cause of its tedium, and such an amount of emphasis as
awakens in Sir Penthony a mad desire to horsewhip him. Though how, in
these degenerate days, _can_ one man horsewhip another because he
makes use of that mild word "very"?

It certainly is a delicious evening. Five o'clock has crept on them
almost insensibly, and tea has been brought out to the veranda. Within,
from the drawing-room, a roar