"Of fair Hebe rather," Baron Tuille observed. "Well Miss Sophia, so you've made a new conquest?" said Fanny. "Yes," answered Sophia: "but it is of a very dowdy, dry-looking man." "But then his curricle!" I interrupted. "Yes, to be sure, I should like to drive out in his curricle, of all things." "It is very odious of the fright to beset my door as he does," Julia said. "So it is, quite abominable; and, for my part, I hate him, and his curricle too," good-natured Sophia replied. "But answer me," said Baron Tuille, addressing himself to me, "does the Duke of Leinster go to the continent this year?" "What is that to you?" I asked. "Only to satisfy poor Worcester, who is so miserable about him. For my part, I asked him why he did not run away with you by force. But he said, that force was good for nothing; and that while you permitted Leinster to visit you he was perfectly wretched. Suspense was the devil, and he could not think why Leinster bothered at all about going to Spain unless he really had some such intention." "I believe you are all laughing at me," said I, "and I don't deserve it; for no one can say I am vain: but if I were, no vanity, not even that of the Honourable John William Ward, could construe Lord Worcester's prim conversation into love for me. True, he blushes and trembles, which, in a lad of such mature worldly manners, who has already been so much in society, does look a little like love; but this is the only sign I have witnessed." "Depend upon it, he is in a desperate, bad way," lisped out Alvanly. "Were you ever seriously in love, my lord?" I asked. "Oh, tremendously, last year," answered his lordship; "but then I fancied it was with a woman of fashion. God bless your soul, a fine carriage, on a perch, with scarlet blinds! Could you have imagined she would ever have asked me for money?" "And what answer did you make?" "Answer! Why I told her I would have preferred death to even the risk of insulting her; but, since she had destroyed all my illusion, I now was disposed to look upon her in a different light, and pay her accordingly, at the rate of five hundred a year; which was handsome for the time I should continue in her company, which, by the bye, would not have been longer than five minutes! However she refused to have anything more to do with me; and I have now, thank God, entirely recovered my peace of mind." * * * * * Worcester was riding near my door as I drove up to it. I stopped to ask him if he liked to join me at Astley's, where I proposed going with the Duke of Leinster. He hesitated, and seemed really annoyed at the idea of Leinster being of the party. "If you really wish it," said his lordship, reddening. "Oh, I shall not break my heart," I answered, "only it has struck me, and has struck others, that you liked me, therefore I conceived the proposal might be agreeable."