whether he _means_ anything, I tell you I think Frank Lovell a shocking flirt." "_Flirt!_" I replied, half crying with vexation. "It's time enough for him to _flirt_ with me when I give him any encouragement. But I don't, Lady Scapegrace, and I never will. I hope I'm too proud for that. Only when a man is always in _one's pocket_ wherever one goes; when he sends one bouquets, and rides out in the rain to get one's bracelet mended, and watches one from a corner of the room if one happens to be dancing with anybody else, and looks pleased when one is dull and cross when one laughs--why, he either does prefer, or ought to prefer, one's society to that of Miss Molasses and Mrs. Lumley, and that is why I tell you I can't quite make out Captain Lovell." "Don't talk of that odious woman," exclaimed Lady Scapegrace, between whom and Mrs. Lumley there was a polite feud of some years' standing. "She is ready and willing to jump down Frank Lovell's throat, or any one else's for the matter of that, so bold as she is, and so utterly regardless--such stories, my dear. But take my advice, Kate: play that cheerful cousin of yours against Master Frank. I never knew it fail yet if you only go the right way to work. Men are not only very vain, but very jealous. Don't let him think you are going _to marry_ your cousin, or he may consider it a capital arrangement and a sort of matter-of-course affair, which is all in his favour. Men like Frank always prefer other people's property, and I have no doubt he would be over head and ears in love with you if you were not single. So don't be going to marry Mr. Jones, but just appeal to him about every earthly thing you do or say, look after him when he leaves the room, as if you couldn't bear him out of your sight. Get Frank to abuse him if you can, and then fight his battles fiercely; and directly the latter thinks there is a rival in the field he will be down on his knees, you mark my words, in two days' time at the furthest. I think I ought to know what men are, my dear" (and to do Lady Scapegrace justice, she had studied that variety of the creation to some purpose, or she was much maligned). "I know that they can't, any of them, see three yards before their noses, and that you can turn and twist them which way you will if you only go upon this principle--that they are full of vanity and self-conceit, and totally deficient in brains." "But I'm sure Captain Lovell's a clever man," said I, not disposed to come to quite such sweeping conclusions as those of my monitress; "and--and--I don't mean to say that I _care_ about him, Lady Scapegrace, but still it mightn't answer with _him_, and--and--I shouldn't like to lose him altogether."