“Horrors indeed, dear aunt, but we’ll bear ’em together.” “But—O child! A proposal—and I here! So indelicate! I’m all of a twitter, I vow!” “So am I, aunt. So shalt thou sit here with me and hear Sir John’s comedy out, poor though it be. And Sir John ever performs better with an audience, I’ll vow!” “O sir,” wailed the little Duchess helplessly, “you see how I’m constrained! Herminia is so—so strapping and strong! I may not stir, indeed!” “Aunt!” “And brutishly brawny, sir.” “Aunt Lucinda!” “Ha!” exclaimed Sir John. “A most excellent phrase, your Grace!” And out came his memorandum forthwith. “‘Bewitching but brutishly brawny is she!’ Here is metre with an alliterative descriptiveness very delightfully arresting! And now, mesdames, I am hither come most solemnly to sue the hand of my Lady Barrasdaile in marriage——” “Then,” she retorted angrily, “all things considered, sir, I demand to know how you dare?” “Not lightly, madam, believe me,” he answered gravely; “but matrimony no longer daunts me. Having made up my mind to’t, I am ready to face it undismayed, to endure unflinching——” “Sir, you insult me!” “Madam, if I do, you are the first and only woman I have so insulted.” “Remember the past, sir—its horrors——” “Think of the future, madam, its joys. As my wife——” “Heaven save and deliver me, sir!” she exclaimed scornfully. “Do you for one moment imagine I would contemplate a situation so extreme horrid?” “But indeed, my lady, despite what the cynics say, marriage hath much to commend it. More especially a union ’twixt you and me, our natures being so extreme the opposite of each other.” “That, indeed, is true, I thank heaven!” she nodded. “Alas, yes, my lady. You being of a somewhat violent, shall we say—ungovernable temper——” “Too tragically true!” murmured the Duchess behind her fan. “Aunt, pray be silent!” “The _armoire_, child!” “Do not distract me, aunt. Sir, you are an insolent impertinent!” “But of a nature serenely calm, madam, to temper your excessive cholers. Indeed, we are each other’s opposites, for whiles you are something ungentle, very headstrong, extreme capricious and vastly vindictive, I am——” “Utterly detestable, sir!” she cried indignantly. “Enough—enough! Good Gad! must I sit and hear you thus abuse me? Forbid it, heaven! Is it not enough affliction that my name should be coupled with yours in the scandalous columns of an infamous journal?” “Can you possibly mean _The Polite Monitor_, madam?” he sighed. “What else, sir? And you ha’ read the hateful thing as a matter of course!” “No, my lady. I wrote it.” “You, Sir John!” exclaimed the Duchess. “You—’twas you?” cried my lady. “Myself!” quoth Sir John. “’Twas writ in haste and hath small merit, I fear, and little to commend it, but such as ’tis——” “Commend it!” cried my lady. “Commend it! Oh, this is too much; you are insufferable! Sir John Dering, you weary me; you may retire!” And magnificently disdainful, she arose.