“Happy girl!” “Be quiet, please. So I asked Harrington to let me have Fanny with us, and you should have seen his face. What, he travel with a couple of us! He--I don't see why I should tell you what the monster said.” “Oh, yes, please do.” “You won't go telling anybody else, then?” “Not a living soul, upon my honor.” “Well, then,” he said--she began to blush like a rose--“that he looked on me as a mere female in embryo; I had not yet developed the vices of my sex. But Fanny Dover was a ripe flirt, and she would set me flirting, and how could he manage the pair? In short, sir, he refused to take us, and gave his reasons, such as they were, poor dear! Then I had to tell Fanny. Then she began to cry, and told me to go without her. But I would not do that, when I had once asked her. Then she clung round my neck, and kissed me, and begged me to be cross and sullen, and tire out dear Harrington.” “That is like her.” “How do you know?” said Zoe sharply. “Oh, I have studied her character.” “When, pray?” said Zoe, ironically, yet blushing a little, because her secret meaning was, “You are always at my apron strings, and have no time to fathom Fanny.” “When I have nothing better to do--when you are out of the room.” “Well, I shall be out of the room very soon, if you say another word.” “And serve me right, too. I am a fool to talk when you allow me to listen.” “He is incorrigible!” said Zoe, pathetically. “Well, then, I refused to pout at Harrington. It is not as if he had no reason to distrust women, poor dear darling. I invited Fanny to stay a month with us; and, when once she was in the house, she soon got over me, and persuaded me to play sad, and showed me how to do it. So we wore long faces, and sweet resignation, and were never cross, but kept turning tearful eyes upon our victim.” “Ha! ha! How absurd of Vizard to tell you that two women would be too much for one man.” “No, it was the truth; and girls are artful creatures, especially when they put their heads together. But hear the end of all our cunning. One day, after dinner, Harrington asked us to sit opposite him; so we did, and felt guilty. He surveyed us in silence a little while, and then he said, 'My young friends, you have played your little game pretty well, especially you, Zoe, that are a novice in the fine arts compared with Miss Dover.' Histrionic talent ought to be rewarded; he would relent, and take us abroad, on one condition: there must be a chaperone. 'All the better,' said we hypocrites, eagerly; 'and who?'”