“Shall I have him out? But, by the way, why do you call me Mr. Bramleigh? Wasn't I Augustus--or rather Gusty--when we met last?” “I don't think so; so well as I remember, I treated you with great respect dashed with a little bit of awe. You and your elder sister were always 'personages' to me.” “I cannot understand that. I can easily imagine Temple inspiring that deference you speak of.” “You were the true prince, however, and I had all Falstaff's reverence for the true prince.” “And yet you see after all I am like to turn out only a pretender.” “By the way, the pretender is here; I mean--if it be not a bull to say it--the real pretender, Count Pracontal.” “Count Pracontal de Bramleigh, George,” said Julia, correcting him. “It is the drollest mode of assuming a family name I ever heard of.” “What is he like?” asked Ellen. “Like a very well-bred Frenchman of the worst school of French manners: he has none of that graceful ease and that placid courtesy of the past period, but he has abundance of the volatile readiness and showy smartness of the present day. They are a wonderful race, however, and their smattering is better than other men's learning.” “I want to see him,” said Augustus. “Well,” broke in L'Estrange, “Lady Augusta writes to me to say he wants to see _you_.” “What does Lady Augusta know of him?” “Heaven knows,” cried Julia; “but they are always together; their rides over the Campagna furnish just now the chief scandal of Rome. George, you may see, looks very serious and rebukeful about it; but, if the truth were told, there's a little jealousy at the root of his morality.” “I declare, Julia, this is too bad.” “Too true, also, my dear George. Will you deny that you used to ride out with her nearly every evening in the summer, rides that began at sunset and ended--I was always asleep when you came home, and so I never knew when they ended.” “Was she very agreeable?” asked Nelly, with the faintest tinge of sharpness in her manner. “The most--what shall I call it?--inconsequent woman I ever met, mixing up things the most dissimilar together, and never dwelling for an instant on anything.” “How base men are,” said Julia, with mock reproach in her voice. “This is the way he talks of a woman he absolutely persecuted with attentions the whole season. Would you believe it, Nelly, we cut up our nice little garden to make a school to train her horse in?” Whether it was that some secret intelligence was rapidly conveyed from Julia as she spoke to Nelly, or that the latter of herself caught up the quizzing spirit of her attack, but the two girls burst out laughing, and George blushed deeply, in shame and irritation. “First of all,” said he, stammering with confusion, “she had a little Arab, the wickedest animal I ever saw. It wasn't safe to approach him; he struck out with his forelegs--”