“I am obliged to you for the character of a sage, cousin,” replied the gentleman with perfect gravity, “Lady Bell Trevor, will you permit me, so soon after being introduced, to take the liberty of pitying you, if my cousin is serious in her account.” “A humorist,” Lady Bell commented to herself under her breath, “an animal that I detest, though I understand my dear Mrs. Sundon has rather a fancy for the species—there is no accounting for tastes—neither is the specimen handsome to excuse him for any form of conceit. I dare say he is clever in some dry disagreeable way.” Captain Fane of the _Thunderbomb_, thus apostrophized and reviewed by bright keen eyes, was a young man of twenty-eight years. Although he was not strictly handsome, he had a good figure, which his naval uniform set off, and his face—with a thick cogitative nose, a wrinkle between the eyebrows, and a tendency to squareness in the jaws—was lit up by a pair of fine eyes, and a pleasantness in his smile when he did smile, which was rather too seldom. Captain Fane accepted Lady Sundon’s invitation to join her party; he was on very good terms with his cousin, though she announced to Lady Bell, “he takes me off at no allowance,” and in accordance with this communication Lady Sundon was continually nodding her head, and snapping her fan in mock agreement with, or smart protest at, Captain Fane’s strictures. The gentleman was indemnifying himself for his concession to kindred feminine influence by the private reflection, “Here is a fine lady of fashion whom my ‘merry wife’ of a cousin has bagged by some chance. I’d better improve the opportunity of studying the latest shore and town follies, grafted on a woman’s wilfulness and caprice. Heartless young dowager (why, she looks little more than a child!) to have married an ‘old Squire Trevor’ and buried him to boot, and to be looking out for his successor, I warrant, with what she’s been cunning enough to secure of the defunct Squire’s goods. It is a bad, as well as a mad world, my masters; but of all things I can’t abide an artful young woman, and this one looks so artless (which makes the art much worse) in the middle of her airs and graces.” “Harry don’t think we women have a pinch of sense,” Lady Sundon was saying, “besides the five senses we can’t help having. As for him, I tell him that except that he’s as sober as a judge (and he a sailor!), and is fond of books and instruments, having his cabin fitted up with them like a pedagogue’s den, he’s a regular chip of some of the horrid old woman-hating admirals. You are a woman of spirit, Lady Bell. I do wish that you would serve it out to him, or take him in hand and do something to improve him.” “Pardon me, Lady Sundon, I have neither time nor talent in that way,” Lady Bell excused herself with one of her airs, not approving of this proposal on so short an acquaintance, to the cynical, saucy fellow’s face.