"I hope your misfortunes have not deprived you of your reason," says she, more tartly than ever; and added, "I knew all along that you didn't know whether it was loaded or not." "Come, come!" says I, keenly anxious, you may be sure, to change the topic. "We have already tarried here over-long. I will tell you the whole story in a more convenient place and season. If we don't go at once, I am afraid we shall not go at all." "True," says Cynthia, seating herself again on the couch with the most deliberate and provoking coolness. "What new whimsey is this?" says I, utterly nonplussed. "I think, my Lord Tiverton," says Cynthia, with remarkable gravity, "that you have overlooked an important particular." "Which? What?" says I. "Nay, my lord," says she, "I am the last person in the world to remind you." That might be true enough so far as it went, but the pretty roguish chit composed her features and her person into such an affectation of solemnity, and there was such a saucy twinkle in her eyes too, that all the words in the English tongue could not have spoken more plainly than she did without uttering any. It is, I suppose, one of the highest gifts of her sex, though to be sure, would it were exercised more! "Dammy," says I, "you mean--er--er; you mean that I must ask you to marry me." Instead of replying at once, she bent down and picked up half-a-dozen cards from the floor, arranged them in the shape of a fan, and held them in front of her eyes. "La," says she, "your lordship is too kind. Pray ascribe my blushes to my country breeding." "Pah!" says I, "we have not the time for play-acting now. The moment is very ill-chosen." "Oh, I grant you that," says she, "but as you will allow that it was none of my choosing, why should I forego the peculiar privileges that my sex have ever derived from this position? No, as I'm a woman, I will have this thing carried through in the most proper and approved manner. Ods lud, sir! what notions have you got! I will be coy if I choose, or haughty, or easy, or gracious, or mocking, or disdainful, just as my mood is and as I've a mind to be. Now then, my lord, down on to your noble knees, and pour forth your foolish speeches that are meant to be so grand, which you must forget in the middle, whereon you will descend out of a rather turgid poetry into a bald and somewhat blasphemous prose. For I will have your lordship to know that I will be wooed as a woman, else I will not be wooed at all. Down, down on to your knees, my lord, and up, up with your apostrophes." "What a consummate folly is this," says I, "when at any moment we may be ta'en."