"Take care how you reckon, Audrey, cried De Clavering, humourously,) remember I saw you under the mulberry-tree." "Well, what if you did?--You might as well have said nothing about it, (replied Audrey.)--I was frightened almost into highsterricks by an ugly black cat jumping from a lylac bush, and I ran to Mr. Camelfor without knowing what I did, and he was so civil and perlite, God bless his good-humoured heart, one must have been a savage to quarrel with him for a civil kiss or two: he does not fleer or jeer people about their looks, or tells what he sees them doing." Neither Roseline nor De Clavering could any longer refrain from laughing, and Camelford that moment entering the room, Audrey was so much displeased, and in so great a hurry to be gone, that, in running to the door, she almost beat down her favourite. "Fat, in the name of Cot, (cried Hugh,) is the matter with the girl? She has as many freaks and fancies in her head as a mountain coat, and is as frolicksome too." "You had better follow her, and make your inquiries, (said De Clavering;) I am satisfied the damsel would tell you what brought on her present disorder sooner than any body else." "I am no toctor, (said Camelford,) therefore don't be playing tricks upon me, by sending me after the tamsel, and pringing little Pertha's anger upon me, which, may I tie in a titch, if I how how to bear." "Oh! if you are enlisted under petticoat government, (replied De Clavering,) I give you up as incurable,--a deserter from the thorny paths of glory, and foresee the sword will be changed into a distaff or a ploughshare." "Luf (cried Camelford) must not be apused; it is the best stimulus to crate and noble actions, the parent of pold atchievements; but of that same luf you know nothing: there is no heart in your pody, and you are mortified to think you cannot find a nostrum to cure the disease in others: you must therefore be caught in luf's snares, in order to learn the nature of those treadful tribulations it brings upon a man. May I go to the tevil in a high wind, if I had not as lief face a canon's mouth as meet the fire of Pertha's pright eyes, when they look indignantly upon me!" "Don't talk so much of the devil, Hugh, (interrupted De Clavering,) but request him to do you the favour of kicking about your brains a little, till they return to a more useful station in your pericranium: in my opinion, you are in a fair way of becoming fist for the government under which you think yourself enlisted." "May the vengeance of all womankind fall upon you! (cried Camelford:)--may you be tragged apout like a tancing pear, to make sport!--may you lead asses in the tark regions of Peelzebub, for your plasphemies against woman! and may--" But all his farther denunciations and wishes for vengeance on De Clavering were now interrupted by a loud screaming. Soon the door was thrown open, and in bounced Audrey, her cap on one side, and her face as pale as ashes.