mpertinent manner of using her eyeglass, and outrageous affectation of
the supreme dandy.

"They take up men, Dick, for going about in women's clothes, and vice
versaw, I suppose. You'll bail me, old fellaa, if I have to make my bow
to the beak, won't you? Say it's becas I'm an honest woman and don't care
to hide the--a--unmentionables when I wear them--as the t'others do,"
sprinkled with the dandy's famous invocations.

He began to conceive romance in that sort of fun.

"You're a wopper, my brave Dick! won't let any peeler take me? by Jove!"

And he with many assurances guaranteed to stand by her, while she bent
her thin fingers trying the muscle of his arm; and reposed upon it more.
There was delicacy in her dandyism. She was a graceful cavalier.

"Sir Julius," as they named the dandy's attire, was frequently called for
on his evening visits to Mrs. Mount. When he beheld Sir Julius he thought
of the lady, and "vice versaw," as Sir Julius was fond of exclaiming.

Was ever hero in this fashion wooed?

The woman now and then would peep through Sir Julius. Or she would sit,
and talk, and altogether forget she was impersonating that worthy fop.

She never uttered an idea or a reflection, but Richard thought her the
cleverest woman he had ever met.

All kinds of problematic notions beset him. She was cold as ice, she
hated talk about love, and she was branded by the world.

A rumour spread that reached Mrs. Doria's ears. She rushed to Adrian
first. The wise youth believed there was nothing in it. She sailed down
upon Richard. "Is this true? that you have been seen going publicly about
with an infamous woman, Richard? Tell me! pray, relieve me!"

Richard knew of no person answering to his aunt's description in whose
company he could have been seen.

"Tell me, I say! Don't quibble. Do you know any woman of bad character?"

The acquaintance of a lady very much misjudged and ill-used by the world,
Richard admitted to.

Urgent grave advice Mrs. Doria tendered her nephew, both from the moral
and the worldly point of view, mentally ejaculating all the while: "That
ridiculous System! That disgraceful marriage!" Sir Austin in his mountain
solitude was furnished with serious stuff to brood over.

The rumour came to Lady Blandish. She likewise lectured Richard, and with
her he condescended to argue. But he found himself obliged to instance
something he had quite neglected. "Instead of her doing me harm, it's I
that wil