on of her dress, and the
uniformity of its colours, it was plain she belonged to some sect which
condemned superfluous gaiety in attire; but no rules, not those of a
nunnery or of a quaker's society, can prevent a little coquetry in that
particular, where a woman is desirous of being supposed to retain some
claim to personal attention. All Mistress Deborah's garments were so
arranged as might best set off a good-looking woman, whose countenance
indicated ease and good cheer--who called herself five-and-thirty, and
was well entitled, if she had a mind, to call herself twelve or fifteen
years older.

Julian was under the necessity of enduring all her tiresome and
fantastic airs, and awaiting with patience till she had "prinked
herself and pinned herself"--flung her hoods back, and drawn them
forward--snuffed at a little bottle of essences--closed her eyes like a
dying fowl--turned them up like duck in a thunderstorm; when at length,
having exhausted her round of _minauderies_, she condescended to open
the conversation.

"These walks will be the death of me," she said, "and all on your
account, Master Julian Peveril; for if Dame Christian should learn that
you have chosen to make your visits to her niece, I promise you Mistress
Alice would be soon obliged to find other quarters, and so should I."

"Come now, Mistress Deborah, be good-humoured," said Julian; "consider,
was not all this intimacy of ours of your own making? Did you not make
yourself known to me the very first time I strolled up this glen with my
fishing-rod, and tell me that you were my former keeper, and that Alice
had been my little playfellow? And what could there be more natural,
than that I should come back and see two such agreeable persons as often
as I could?"

"Yes," said Dame Deborah; "but I did not bid you fall in love with us,
though, or propose such a matter as marriage either to Alice or myself."

"To do you justice, you never did, Deborah," answered the youth; "but
what of that? Such things will come out before one is aware. I am sure
you must have heard such proposals fifty times when you least expected
them."

"Fie, fie, fie, Master Julian Peveril," said the governante; "I would
have you to know that I have always so behaved myself, that the best of
the land would have thought twice of it, and have very well considered
both what he was going to say, and how he was going to say it, before he
came out with such proposals to me."

"True