"What an admirable epigram!" cried the Hibernian, to whom flattery was second nature. "I shall put that down in my commonplace book when I go home. How I wish you would honour me--but it is to ask too much, perhaps--how proud I should be if you would let me hear, or see, some of your poems." "Would you really like----?" faltered Lady Mabel. "Like! I should deem it the highest privilege your friendship could vouchsafe." "If I felt sure it would not bore you, I should like much to have your opinion, your candid opinion," (Lord Mallow tried to look the essense of candour) "upon some things I have written. But it would be really to impose too much upon your good-nature." "It would be to make me the proudest, and--for that one brief hour at least--the happiest of men," protested Lord Mallow, looking intensely sentimental. "And you will deal frankly with me? You will not flatter? You will be as severe as an Edinburgh reviewer?" "I will be positively brutal," said Lord Mallow. "I will try to imagine myself an elderly feminine contributor to the 'Saturday,' looking at you with vinegar gaze through a pair of spectacles, bent upon spotting every fleck and flaw in your work, and predetermined not to see anything good in it." "Then I will trust you!" cried Lady Mabel, with a gush. "I have longed for a listener who could understand and criticise, and who would be too honourable to flatter. I will trust you, as Marguerite of Valois trusted Clement Marot." Lord Mallow did not know anything about the French poet and his royal mistress, but he contrived to look as if he did. And, before he ran away to the House presently, he gave Lady Mabel's hand a tender little pressure which she accepted in all good faith as a sign manual of the compact between them. They met in the Row next morning, and Lord Mallow asked--as earnestly as if the answer involved vital issues--when he might be permitted to hear those interesting poems. "Whenever you can spare time to listen," answered Lady Mabel, more flattered by his earnestness than by all the adulatory nigar-plums which had been showered upon her since her _debut_. "If you have nothing better to do this afternoon----" "Could I have anything better to do?" "We won't enter upon so wide a question," said Lady Mabel, laughing prettily. "If committee-rooms and public affairs can spare you for an hour or two, come to tea with mamma at five. I'll get her to deny herself to all the rest of the world, and we can have an undisturbed hour in which you can deal severely with my poor little efforts."