“Let me remind you,” said Lydia, composedly, though she too had changed color at the beginning of his outburst, “that we are both wanted elsewhere at present; I by Miss Goff, and you by your servant, who has been hovering about us and looking at you anxiously for some minutes.” Cashel turned fiercely, and saw Mellish standing a little way off, sulkily watching him. Lydia took the opportunity, and left the place. As she retreated she could hear that they were at high words together; but she could not distinguish what they were saying. Fortunately so; for their language was villainous. She found Alice in the library, seated bolt upright in a chair that would have tempted a good-humored person to recline. Lydia sat down in silence. Alice, presently looking at her, discovered that she was in a fit of noiseless laughter. The effect, in contrast to her habitual self-possession, was so strange that Alice almost forgot to be offended. “I am glad to see that it is not hard to amuse you,” she said. Lydia waited to recover herself thoroughly, and then replied, “I have not laughed so three times in my life. Now, Alice, put aside your resentment of our neighbor’s impudence for the moment, and tell me what you think of him.” “I have not thought about him at all, I assure you,” said Alice, disdainfully. “Then think about him for a moment to oblige me, and let me know the result.” “Really, you have had much more opportunity of judging than I. _I_ have hardly spoken to him.” Lydia rose patiently and went to the bookcase. “You have a cousin at one of the universities, have you not?” she said, seeking along the shelf for a volume. “Yes,” replied Alice, speaking very sweetly to atone for her want of amiability on the previous subject. “Then perhaps you know something of university slang?” “I never allow him to talk slang to me,” said Alice, quickly. “You may dictate modes of expression to a single man, perhaps, but not to a whole university,” said Lydia, with a quiet scorn that brought unexpected tears to Alice’s eyes. “Do you know what a pug is?” “A pug!” said Alice, vacantly. “No; I have heard of a bulldog--a proctor’s bulldog, but never a pug.” “I must try my slang dictionary,” said Lydia, taking down a book and opening it. “Here it is. ‘Pug--a fighting man’s idea of the contracted word to be produced from pugilist.’ What an extraordinary definition! A fighting man’s idea of a contraction! Why should a man have a special idea of a contraction when he is fighting; or why should he think of such a thing at all under such circumstances? Perhaps ‘fighting man’ is slang too. No; it is not given here. Either I mistook the word, or it has some signification unknown to the compiler of my dictionary.” “It seems quite plain to me,” said Alice. “Pug means pugilist.”