"Precisely, my dear Simon; just what you are!" responded Little Grand, pleasantly, "Bless your heart, I've been engaged to half a dozen women since I joined. A man can hardly help it, you see; they've such a way of drawing you on, you don't like to disappoint them, poor little dears, and so you compromise yourself out of sheer benevolence. There's such a run on a handsome man--it's a great bore. Sometimes I think I shall shave my head, or do something to disfigure myself, as Spurina did. Poor fellow, I feel for him! Well, Simon, you don't seem curious to know who my beauty is?" "One of those Mitchell girls of the Twenty-first? You waltzed with 'em all night; but they're too tall for you, Grand." "The Mitchell girls!" ejaculated he, with supreme scorn. "Great maypoles! they go about with the Fusiliers like a pair of colors. On every ball-room battlefield one's safe to see _them_ flaunting away, and as everybody has a shot at 'em, their hearts must be pretty well riddled into holes by this time. No, mine's rather higher game than that. My mother's brother-in-law's aunt's sister's cousin's cousin once removed was Viscount Twaddle, and I don't go anything lower than the Peerage." "What, is it somebody you've met at his Excellency's?" "Wrong again, beloved Simon. It's nobody I've met at old Stars and Garters', though his lady-wife could no more do without me than without her sal volatile and flirtations. No, _she_ don't go there; she's too high for that sort of thing--sick of it. After all the European Courts, Malta must be rather small and slow. I was introduced to her yesterday, and," continued Little Grand, more solemnly than was his wont, "I do assure you she's superb, divine; and I'm not very easy to please." "What's her name?" I asked, rather impressed with this view of a lady too high for old Stars and Garters, as we irreverently termed her Majesty's representative in her island of Malta. Little Grand took his pipe out of his lips to correct me with more dignity. "Her _title_, my dear Simon, is the Marchioness St. Julian." "Is that an English peerage, Grand?" "Hum! What! Oh yes, of course! What else should it be, you owl!" Not being in a condition to decide this point, I was silent, and he went on, growing more impressive at each phrase: