"Lady Geraldine, pray permit me to present to you my newly-made friend and comrade, Sir Grey Dumaresq, who, I doubt not, is dying to make his bow to so fair a lady." She flashed him a glance half merry, half reproachful, and he suddenly laid his hand upon his lips, a laugh rolling from them hearty and full. "I’ faith I had forgot! How shall I teach my rebel tongue a new language? But Sir Grey will atone for all my defects.—Here is a lady, if you will believe it, O friend, who loves not the sugared and honeyed phrase of adulation, but seeks in all things truth, virtue, and I know not what else beside. It is whispered to me that she is a mistress of all the _belles lettres_, and perchance a poetess herself." "Nay, my lord," answered Geraldine, with a blush and a smile—"only one who loves the poesy of those who have lived before, and left their treasures for us who come after, and would fain drink in all the beauty of their thoughts and of their lives." Lord Sandford good-naturedly yielded his seat to Grey, whose sensitive face had lighted at the girl’s words. "Methought I had come to a world where naught was dreamed of save fashion and frippery, false adulation and falser scorn. I am well-nigh stunned by the clamour of tongues, the strife of parties, the bustle of this gay life of fashion." "Oh, and I too—I too!" breathed the girl softly: and he flashed at her a quick, keen glance of sympathy and interest. "I was bred in the country; my grandam brought me up. I lived with my books, amid silvan solitudes, the songs of birds, the scent of flowers. This great glittering world of folly and fashion is like a fiery wheel going round in my head. Ofttimes I could cry aloud for mercy, the pain and bewilderment are so great. I know there must be noble men and good in this strange Pandemonium; but I know not where to find them, and my heart grows sick. Would that I could go back to my books and my dreams! But alas! a maiden may not choose for herself." "Still there is life here," spoke Grey quickly, "and it behoves us to know men as well as books. I have studied both. I will study them again. I would fain learn all that life has to teach, whether for weal or woe. No hermit-monk was ever truly a man. Yet there be times when one shrinks in amaze from all one sees and hears."