, and
a little talk (a little "chaff," some of the most elegant of the
men styled their conversation) with Miss Amory. They had offered her
sportive bets, and exchanged with her all sorts of free-talk and knowing
innuendoes. They pointed out to her who was on the course: and the "who"
was not always the person a young lady should know.

When Pen came up to Lady Clavering's carriage, he had to push his way
through a crowd of these young bucks who were paying their court to Miss
Amory, in order to arrive as near that young lady, who beckoned him by
many pretty signals to her side.

"Je lay vue," she said; "Elle a de bien beaux yeux; vous etes un
monster!"

"Why monster?" said Pen, with a laugh; "Hone suit qui mal y peens.
My young friend, yonder, is as well protected as any young lady in
Christendom. She has her mamma on one side, her pretend on the other.
Could any harm happen to a girl between those two?"

"One does not know what may or may not arrive," said Miss Blanche, in
French, "when a girl has the mind, and when she is pursued by a wicked
monster like you. Figure to yourself, Major, that I come to find
Monsieur, your nephew, near to a cab, by two ladies, and a man, oh, such
a man! and who ate lobsters, and who laughed, who laughed!"

"It did not strike me that the man laughed," Pen said, "And as for
lobsters, I thought he would have liked to eat me after the lobsters.
He shook hands with me, and gripped me so, that he bruised my glove
black-and-blue. He is a young surgeon. He comes from Clavering. Don't
you remember the gilt pestle and mortar in High Street?"

"If he attends you when you are sick," continued Miss Amory, "he will
kill you. He will serve you right; for you are a monster."

The perpetual recurrence to the word "monster" jarred upon Pen. "She
speaks about these matters a great deal too lightly," he thought. "If I
had been a monster, as she calls it, she would have received me just
the same. This is not the way in which an English lady should speak or
think. Laura would not speak in that way, thank God;" and as he thought
so, his own countenance fell.

"Of what are you thinking? Are you going to bouder me at present?"
Blanche asked. "Major, scold your mechant nephew. He does not amuse me
at all. He is as bete as Captain Crackenbury."

"What are you saying about me, Miss Amory?" said the guardsman, with a
grin. "If it's anything good, say it in English, for I don't understand
French when it's