coming?"

"Not a word. I don't think he quite knew who she was then. I fancy he
has inquired since, by something he said yesterday."

"What did he say?"

"Nothing that matters;--only a word. I haven't come here to talk
about Madame Max Goesler,--nor yet about Mr. Kennedy."

"Whom have you come to talk about?" asked Violet, laughing a little,
with something of increased colour in her cheeks, though she could
not be said to blush.

"A lover of course," said Lady Laura.

"I wish you would leave me alone with my lovers. You are as bad or
worse than my aunt. She, at any rate, varies her prescription. She
has become sick of poor Lord Fawn because he's a Whig."

"And who is her favourite now?"

"Old Mr. Appledom,--who is really a most unexceptionable old party,
and whom I like of all things. I really think I could consent to be
Mrs. Appledom, to get rid of my troubles,--if he did not dye his
whiskers and have his coats padded."

"He'd give up those little things if you asked him."

"I shouldn't have the heart to do it. Besides, this isn't his time of
the year for making proposals. His love fever, which is of a very low
kind, and intermits annually, never comes on till the autumn. It is a
rural malady, against which he is proof while among his clubs!"

"Well, Violet,--I am like your aunt."

"Like Lady Baldock?"

"In one respect. I, too, will vary my prescription."

"What do you mean, Laura?"

"Just this,--that if you like to marry Phineas Finn, I will say that
you are right."

"Heaven and earth! And why am I to marry Phineas Finn?"

"Only for two reasons; because he loves you, and because--"

"No,--I deny it. I do not."

"I had come to fancy that you did."

"Keep your fancy more under control then. But upon my word I can't
understand this. He was your great friend."

"What has that to do with it?" demanded Lady Laura.

"And you have thrown over your brother, Laura?"

"You have thrown him over. Is he to go on for ever asking and being
refused?"

"I do not know why he should not," said Violet, "seeing how very
little trouble it gives him. Half an hour once in six months does it
all for him, allowing him time for coming and going in a cab."

"Violet, I do not understand you. Have you refused Oswald so often
because he does not pass hours on his knees before you?"

"No, indeed! His nature would be altered very much for the worse
before he could do that."

"Why do you throw it in his teeth then t