“A duke I never mentioned!” the little dressmaker cried with eagerness. “I never specified any rank nor said a word about any one in particular. I never so much as insinuated the name of his lordship. But I may have said that if the truth was to be found out he might be proved to be connected—in the way of cousinship, or something of the kind—with the highest in the land. I should have thought myself wanting if I hadn’t given him a glimpse of that. But there’s one thing I’ve always added—that the truth never _is_ found out.” “You’re still more comforting than I!” Mr. Vetch exclaimed. He continued to watch her with his charitable, round-faced smile, and then he said: “You won’t do what I say; so what’s the use of my telling you?” “I assure you I will, if you say you believe it’s the only right.” “Do I often say anything so asinine? Right—right? what have you to do with that? If you want the only right you’re very particular.” “Please then what am I to go by?” the dressmaker asked bewildered. “You’re to go by this, by what will take the youngster down.” “Take him down, my poor little pet?” “Your poor little pet thinks himself the flower of creation. I don’t say there’s any harm in that: a fine blooming, odoriferous conceit is a natural appendage of youth and intelligence. I don’t say there’s any great harm in it, but if you want a guide as to how you’re to treat the boy, that’s as good a guide as any other.” “You want me to arrange the interview then?” “I don’t want you to do anything but give me another _leetle_ swig—thanks. I just say this: that I think it’s a great gain, early in life, to know the worst; then we don’t live in a rank fools’ paradise. I did that till I was nearly forty; then I woke up and found I was in Lomax Place.” Whenever Mr. Vetch said anything that could be construed as a reference to a former position that had had elements of distinction Miss Pynsent observed a respectful, a tasteful silence and that is why she didn’t challenge him now, though she wanted very much to say that Hyacinth was no more “presumptious” (that was the term she would have used) than he had reason to be, with his genteel appearance, and his acknowledged powers; and that as for thinking himself a “flower” of any kind he knew but too well that he lived in a small black-faced house miles away from any good family, rented by a poor little woman who took lodgers and who, as they were of such a class that they were not always to be depended upon to settle her weekly account, had a strain to make two ends meet, for all the sign between her windows— MISS AMANDA PYNSENT _Modes et Robes_ DRESSMAKING IN ALL ITS BRANCHES: COURT-DRESSES: MANTLES AND FASHIONABLE BONNETS