"Well, I don't know; it's mouldier and more tumbledown, certainly, but there are some parts of it that are uncommonly like the unfinished streets in the new part of Belgravia. And people walk about, and eat and drink, and flirt, you know, just as they do in town. There's a Colosseum at Rome, too, as well as in London, only the one in Rome isn't in such good repair." This was said in perfect good faith; and the others shouted with laughter at it, in the midst of which they came to a stile, joining upon the Paddock, and here they parted into couples again, only this time Churchill and Barbara took the lead. "I think she's made another _coup_," said Lyster, looking at them, as they immediately fell into earnest conversation. "She certainly is wonderful,--never misses fire!" "If I were Barbara, I should be careful about any flirtation with Mr. Churchill. They're dreadful people, these poets, you know,--at least so I've always heard; and if you give them any encouragement, and then won't marry them, they cry out, and abuse you terribly in books and newspapers." "That would be awful!" said Lyster; "as bad as having your letters read out in a breach-of-promise case, by Jove! Never could understand how fellows wrote such spoony letters to women,--never could fancy how they thought of all the things they said." And yet I think, if Captain Lyster had been rigorously cross-examined, he must needs have confessed that he himself had never, throughout the whole course of his previous life, gone through so much actual thinking as since he knew Miss Townshend. There was, perhaps, no species of flirtation in which he was not an adept, for he had sufficient brains to do what he called the "talkee-talkee;" while his natural idleness enabled him to carry on a silent _solitude à deux_, and to make great play with an occasional elevation of the eyebrow or touch of the hand. He had run through a thorough course of garrison hacks, and had seen all the best produce of the export Indian market; he had met the beauties of the season at London balls and in country houses, and his listlessness and languor had hitherto carried him through scot-free. But now he was certainly "fetched," as his friends would call it, and began to feel an interest in Miss Townshend which he had never felt for any other person. There had been a two days' flirtation between him and Barbara Lexden; but they were so utterly unsuited, that, at the end of that time, they, as it were, showed their hands to each other, and then, with a laugh, threw up their cards. The flirtation was never renewed; but a curious, strange friendship,--exhibited in the conversation about the coming professor,--and always half raillery on both sides, existed between them. But "this little Townshend girl," as he thought of her in his dreamy reveries, was quite another matter; she was so jolly and good-tempered, and so approachable, and never gave herself any airs,