"The deuce take the best of them, my dear; if they are often called upon for sorrow, it hardens them, as the cold air stiffens your sticks of lollypops. Tommy is but a man, after all; and the dog must be amused, not frightened. What an owl he looked, bless his heart!" Sir John Spottiswoode appeared suddenly at Hatton. He was staying at Lidham, and excursing among his friends in Shropshire. Mrs. Pynsent insisted upon Sir John becoming their guest, and enforced her request in her usual quaintly expressive style. "Here, hollo, Sir Jacky, you can't think of leaving us at the rate of a sneaking call! Make yourself at home, man; and stay with us till Tom's wife--" An earnest look of entreaty from Anna Maria checked the rapidity of Mrs. Pynsent's speech. She hesitated. "Stay with us, Sir Jacky, till--I'll be hanged if I know what I was going to say!--if you haven't put every thing out of my head, Anna Maria. What did you think I was going to say? I wasn't going to talk like Sally Hancock." "Stay with us, Spottiswoode," cried Tom Pynsent, "and we'll have a field-day; such a one as you never saw in Italy." "Oh, those outlandish places, and those snivelling Frenchmen!" exclaimed Mrs. Pynsent: "come to us, and here's a pretty girl, worth all your mamzells." Mrs. Pynsent pointed Sir John Spottiswoode's attention to Christobelle. The timid girl felt a poignant shame, which caused deep blushes to suffuse her face and neck, and she placed herself behind Anna Maria, till an opportunity offered to escape from the room. When she returned Sir John had departed, but he was to become a guest at Hatton for some days, on the following morning. He was to accompany Mr. Wycherly and the Charles Spottiswoodes to dinner. Mrs. Pynsent rallied Christobelle upon her flight from the sitting-room. "Why, hollo, my young one, you seem to shrink under a little notice. That won't do for my lady, some time hence. You must expect notice now. Don't be a fool--an affected fool--or any thing of that kind; but you must expect to hear yourself admired. Why, you're a monstrous fine girl, and, if you don't beat Lady Kerrison in a few years, my name is not Pen Pynsent." Christobelle blushed more deeply and painfully than before. "Come, Miss Bell, try to bear beauty without reddening so furiously. Don't be argued into selling it to the best bidder, and you need not be ashamed of it." "My dear Miss Wetheral," said the peaceable Mr. Pynsent, "come and shelter yourself under my wing." "A pretty wing you have got to shelter her with, Bobby." Mr. Pynsent, to use a parliamentary expression, "withdrew his motion," and Christobelle was again exposed to his lady's jests. "Now, I say, Sir Jacky would be a proper sort of beau for you, Miss Bell. A long-legged fellow, as steady as our best hound, with a nice estate, and a good temper." "I would rather not leave papa," answered poor Christobelle, almost inclined to weep.