"Yes," rejoined Mr. Frank Ombre, who had been permitted to overhear the whisper, and smiling with one of those doubtful expressions which might do for tragic or for comic effect, "we do not want royalty now to keep us in order,--that is quite an obsolete idea. No, we have more enlarged views; we like to turn every thing, _sans dessus dessous_--don't we Lady Tilney? I am sure I had rather bow to the sceptre of your beauty, than to that of any prince or princess--and you know I never flatter." At that moment a royal personage entered the assembly, when Lady Tilney, under pretence of going away, hurried to the door, saying, "oh, do let me avoid this _seccatura_." "Do, Mr. Spencer Newcombe," addressing this privileged friend of her own circle who stood near her, "do call my carriage,"--in the meanwhile placing herself in a situation that made it impossible, without rudeness, for the person whose approach she would have appeared to shun, to pass her by unregarded; a behaviour which, however consistent with Lady Tilney's ill breeding, when she wished to shew dislike, was never known to attach to any of the family who were the objects of her pretended contempt. Lady Tilney did not, on the present occasion, make her arrangements in vain, and was not only spoken to, but held so long in conversation by the royal person who entered, that she had the satisfaction of hearing her carriage repeatedly announced, till every individual of the assembly must have been aware of the cause of her delay. The dense crowd, however, which now encircled the prince, seemed to oppress Lady Tilney, and affecting to be almost overcome by the pressure,--a pressure which in fact she was herself causing, by obstinately keeping her place, and not allowing the conversation to drop--she was at length gratified by an offer of the arm of royalty to lead her to a seat, on which she sank affectedly, while the prince took that next to her. In one of the pauses of conversation which ensued, Mr. Ombre chanced to find himself exactly at the back of Lady Tilney's chair, and she took an opportunity of whispering to him, "how tiresome!" He shrugged his shoulders, and replied in her ear, "I pity you from the bottom of my heart," (adding aside to Spencer Newcombe), "As I do every one who always succeeds in every thing they wish." Shortly after, the prince rose to depart to speak to others, while Lady Tilney having made good her right to royal attention, now prepared to express her contumely of every thing regal, and to resume the exercise of her own right to absolute power in her own person. "Do, Mr. Ombre, sit down and let me have a _little_ real conversation with you, for I am sick of all the _fadaises_ which have just passed." "What a fortunate man," he rejoined, "shall I be, if I have only a _little_ conversation with Lady Tilney!--you know I never flatter,--and besides that distinction, a seat,"--dropping carelessly into the one that was vacant.