“Well,” said Lizzy, gayly, “now that your anxieties are well over, I do entreat of you to unbend a little, and let us see the lively, light-hearted Mr. Annesley Beecher, of whose pleasant ways I have heard so much.” “I used to be light-hearted enough once, eh, Davis?” said Beecher, with a sigh. “When you saw me first at the Derby--of, let me see, I don't remember the year, but it was when Danby's mare Petrilla won,--with eighteen to one 'given and taken' against her, the day of the race,--Brown Davy, the favorite, coming in a bad third,--he died the same night.” “Was he 'nobbled'?” asked Lizzy, dryly. “What do you mean?” cried Grog, gruffly. “Where did you learn that word?” “Oh, I'm quite strong in your choice vocabulary,” said she, laughingly; “and you are not to fancy that in the dissipations of Aix I have forgotten the cares of my education. My guardian there set me a task every morning,--a page of Burke's Peerage and a column of the 'Racing Calendar;' and for the ninth Baron of Fitzfoodle, or the fifteenth winner of the Diddlesworth, you may call on me at a moment.” The angry shadow on Davis's brow gradually faded away, and he laughed a real, honest, and good-humored laugh. “What do you say to the Count, Lizzy?” asked he next. “There was a fine gentleman, wasn't he?” “There was the ease and the self-possession of good breeding without the manners. He was amusing from his own self-content, and a sort of latent impression that he was taking you in, and when one got tired of that, he became downright stupid.” “True as a book, every word of it!” cried Beecher, in hearty gratitude, for he detested the man, and was envious of his small accomplishments. “His little caressing ways, too, ceased to be flatteries, when you saw that, like the cheap bonbons scattered at a carnival, they were made for the million.” “Hit him again, he has n't got no friends!” said Beecher, with an assumed slang in his tone. “But worst of all was that mockery of good nature,--a false air of kindliness about him. It was a spurious coinage, so cleverly devised that you looked at every good guinea afterwards with distrust.” “How she knows him,--how she reads him!” cried Davis, in delight. “He was very large print, papa,” said she, smiling. “Confound me!” cried Beecher, “if I didn't think you liked him, you used to receive him so graciously; and I'll wager he thinks himself a prime favorite with you.” “So he may, if it give him any pleasure,” said she, with a careless laugh. Davis marked the expression of Beecher's face as she said these words; he saw how that distrustful nature was alarmed, and he hastened to repair the mischief. “I am sure you never affected to feel any regard for him, Lizzy?” said Davis. “Regard for him!” said she, haughtily; “I should think not! Such people as he are like the hired horses that every one uses, and only asks that they should serve for the day they have taken them.”