on in advance by themselves. Lady Margaretta had found it
rather dull work, making a third in Miss Oriel's flirtation with her
cousin; the more so as she was quite accustomed to take a principal
part herself in all such transactions. She therefore not unwillingly
walked on with Mr Oriel. Mr Oriel, it must be conceived, was not a
common, everyday parson, but had points about him which made him
quite fit to associate with an earl's daughter. And as it was known
that he was not a marrying man, having very exalted ideas on that
point connected with his profession, the Lady Margaretta, of course,
had the less objection to trust herself alone with him.

But directly she was gone, Miss Oriel's tone of banter ceased. It was
very well making a fool of a lad of twenty-one when others were by;
but there might be danger in it when they were alone together.

"I don't know any position on earth more enviable than yours, Mr
Gresham," said she, quite soberly and earnestly; "how happy you ought
to be."

"What, in being laughed at by you, Miss Oriel, for pretending to be
a man, when you choose to make out that I am only a boy? I can bear
to be laughed at pretty well generally, but I can't say that your
laughing at me makes me feel so happy as you say I ought to be."

Frank was evidently of an opinion totally different from that of Miss
Oriel. Miss Oriel, when she found herself _tete-a-tete_ with him,
thought it was time to give over flirting; Frank, however, imagined
that it was just the moment for him to begin. So he spoke and looked
very languishing, and put on him quite the airs of an Orlando.

"Oh, Mr Gresham, such good friends as you and I may laugh at each
other, may we not?"

"You may do what you like, Miss Oriel: beautiful women I believe
always may; but you remember what the spider said to the fly, 'That
which is sport to you, may be death to me.'" Anyone looking at
Frank's face as he said this, might well have imagined that he was
breaking his very heart for love of Miss Oriel. Oh, Master Frank!
Master Frank! if you act thus in the green leaf, what will you do in
the dry?

While Frank Gresham was thus misbehaving himself, and going on as
though to him belonged the privilege of falling in love with pretty
faces, as it does to ploughboys and other ordinary people, his great
interests were not forgotten by those guardian saints who were so
anxious to shower down on his head all manner of temporal blessings.

Another conv