"Do you mean to tell me, Kate," commenced her brother, assuming suddenly such a serious air as for a moment imposed on his sister, "that to become mistress of dear old Yatton--which was _offered_ to you, you know--you would not have consented, when it came to the point, to become--Mrs. _Titmouse_?" For an instant, Kate looked as if she would have made, in the eye of the statuary, an exquisite model of beautiful disdain--provoked by the bare idea even, and put forward, as she knew, in raillery only. "You know, Charles," said she at length, calmly, her features relaxing into a smile, "that if such a wretch had ten thousand Yattons, I would, rather than marry him--oh!"--she shuddered--"spring from Dover cliff into the sea!" "Ah, Kate, Kate!" exclaimed her brother, with a look of infinite pride and fondness. "Even supposing for a moment that you had no prev"---- "Come, Charles, no more nonsense," said Kate, patting his cheek, and slightly coloring. "I say, that even if"---- "Only fancy," interrupted Kate, "_Lady Cecilia_--TITMOUSE! I see her before me now. Well, I protest it is positively insufferable; I could not have thought that there was a woman in the whole world--why"--she paused, and added laughingly, "how I should like to see their correspondence!" "What!" said Mrs. Aubrey, with a sly smile, first at her husband, and then at Kate, "as a model for a certain _other_ correspondence that I can imagine--eh, Kate!" "Nonsense, nonsense, Agnes!--what a provoking humor you are both in this evening," interrupted Kate, with a slight pettishness; "what we've heard makes _me_ melancholy enough, I assure you!" "I suppose that about the same time that Lady Cecilia Titmouse goes to court," said her brother, "so will the Honorable Mrs. Dela"---- "If you choose to tease me, Charles, of course I cannot help it," quoth Kate, coloring still more; but it required no _very_ great acuteness to detect that the topic was not excessively offensive. "Mrs. De"---- "Have done, Charles!" said she, rising; and, putting her arm round his neck, she pressed her fair hand on his mouth; but he pushed it aside laughingly. "Mrs. De--Dela--Delamere," he continued. "I will finish it for you, Charles," said Mrs. Aubrey, "the Honorable Mr. and Mrs. Delamere"---- "What! do _you_ turn against me too?" inquired Kate, laughing very good-humoredly. "I wonder what her stately Ladyship's feelings were," said Aubrey, after a pause, "the first time that her elegant and accomplished lover _saluted_ her!!" "Eugh!" exclaimed both Kate and Mrs. Aubrey, in a breath, and with a simultaneous shudder of disgust.