s--'

'Oh ple-e-e-ease don't!' Georgiana, as if the supplication were being
squeezed out of her by powerful compression. 'I so hate him for saying
it!'

'For saying what, my dear?' laughed Mrs Lammle.

'Oh, I don't know what he said,' cried Georgiana wildly, 'but I hate him
all the same for saying it.'

'My dear,' said Mrs Lammle, always laughing in her most captivating way,
'the poor young fellow only says that he is stricken all of a heap.'

'Oh, what shall I ever do!' interposed Georgiana. 'Oh my goodness what a
Fool he must be!'

'--And implores to be asked to dinner, and to make a fourth at the play
another time. And so he dines to-morrow and goes to the Opera with
us. That's all. Except, my dear Georgiana--and what will you think of
this!--that he is infinitely shyer than you, and far more afraid of you
than you ever were of any one in all your days!'

In perturbation of mind Miss Podsnap still fumed and plucked at her
hands a little, but could not help laughing at the notion of anybody's
being afraid of her. With that advantage, Sophronia flattered her and
rallied her more successfully, and then the insinuating Alfred flattered
her and rallied her, and promised that at any moment when she might
require that service at his hands, he would take young Fledgeby out and
trample on him. Thus it remained amicably understood that young Fledgeby
was to come to admire, and that Georgiana was to come to be admired; and
Georgiana with the entirely new sensation in her breast of having that
prospect before her, and with many kisses from her dear Sophronia in
present possession, preceded six feet one of discontented footman (an
amount of the article that always came for her when she walked home) to
her father's dwelling.

The happy pair being left together, Mrs Lammle said to her husband:

'If I understand this girl, sir, your dangerous fascinations have
produced some effect upon her. I mention the conquest in good time
because I apprehend your scheme to be more important to you than your
vanity.'

There was a mirror on the wall before them, and her eyes just caught
him smirking in it. She gave the reflected image a look of the deepest
disdain, and the image received it in the glass. Next moment they
quietly eyed each other, as if they, the principals, had had no part in
that expressive transaction.

It may have been that Mrs Lammle tried in some manner to excuse her
conduct to herself by depreciating the poor li