"Finally so--or for the present shall we say?" replied Cosmo, lighting a pipe by the old and elaborate process, to conceal his agitation. "A wilful little jade she is as ever I knew. Evidently has no fancy for me, or for increasing the number of his Majesty's lieges under canvas, or for seeing the world in a baggage-waggon, as a lady attached to a regiment of the line." The courtly old lady gazed at her son almost mournfully; for this mocking brusquerie, acquired in the Pavilion of the Prince Regent, but ill accorded with her old-fashioned ideas of gentle bearing. "You have been wrong, Cosmo," said she gravely; "you have been too hasty--too abrupt." "Now, faith, do you think so, really?" "It was absurd to propose for any girl, especially a young lady of family and fortune, after a two days' acquaintance." "Egad, my most respected mamma, in London, I've known a score of women of the first fashion, who would have eloped with me for better or worse, and taken post horses for Gretna, on a two hours' acquaintance." "Oh, Cosmo!" "So I am wrong, you think, my lady mother?" "Decidedly; but I trust that time will put all right. I do not despair." "Neither do I, be assured," said he, with one of his strange smiles. "The silly girl, of course, felt flattered by your offer?" "Not at all--one might think such matters were of daily occurrence with her." "Did she make no consideration of our family and its antiquity?" she asked, bridling up. "My dear mother, it seems to be of very little importance to Flora Warrender whether the said family flourished at the court of old King Cole, from whose grave Kyle takes its name, or at that of his Majesty of the Cannibal Islands; at all events, she won't have me. Confound it!" he exclaimed, as if talking to himself; "to think that I, almost the pattern man of the Household Brigade--chosen by many a proud peeress to squire her through the crush of the opera; by the fighting men of the corps as their second in every affair of honour; by the Prince Regent to arrange his déjeuners, afternoon receptions, and crack suppers; I, the star of Fops' Alley--deemed the best stroke at billiards in London--the best hand on a tiller at Cowes, or to pull the bow-oar to Richmond; chosen to ride the most vicious brutes at Epsom and Melton, and who can hit a guinea at twenty yards with a saw-handle and a hair-trigger--that I, I say, should be outflanked by a country booby passes my comprehension, unless, as in old King James's days, there be witchcraft again in the Bailiwick of Carrick! To be jockeyed by a country lout and a lass of eighteen--deucedly disgusting! Thank heaven! this can never be known in town, or how would the lady-killing Cosmo be roasted! I think I hear Paget of the Hussars, and the rest of our set laughing over it; and, by Jove, they would laugh too, until I had one or two of them out at Chalk Farm for a morning appetiser."