s Prim has her skirt
in her hand and her foot on the lower step. And yet how innocent is she
now before you and me."

Here he would invariably be smothered.

"Percy Singleton!" says Patty, with a fine scorn; "'twill be Mr.
Eglinton, the curate, next."

"This I know," says her father, slapping me on the shoulder, "this I
know, that you are content to see Richard without primping."

"But I have known Richard since I was six," says she. "Richard is one of
the family. There is no need of disguise from him."

I thought, ruefully enough, that it seemed my fate to be one of the
family everywhere I went.

And just then, as if in judgment, the gate snapped and the knocker
sounded, and Patty leaped down with a blush. "What said I say?" cries
the barrister. "I have not seen human nature in court for naught. Run,
now," says he, pinching her cheek as she stood hesitating whether to fly
or stay; "run and put on the new dress I have bought you. And Richard
and I will have a cup of ale in the study."

The visitor chanced to be Will Fotheringay that time. He was not the
only one worn out with the mad chase in Prince George Street, and
preferred a quiet evening with a quiet beauty to the crowded lists of
Miss Manners. Will declared that the other gallants were fools over the
rare touch of blue in the black hair: give him Miss Swain's, quoth he,
lifting his glass,--hers was; the colour of a new sovereign. Will was
not, the only one. But I think Percy Singleton was the best of them all,
tho' Patty ridiculed him--every chance she got, and even to his face.
So will: the best-hearted and soberest of women play the coquette.
Singleton was rather a reserved young Englishman of four and twenty,
who owned a large estate in Talbot which he was laying out with great
success. Of a Whig family in the old country, he had been drawn to that
party in the new, and so, had made Mr. Swain's acquaintance. The next
step in his fortunes was to fall in love with Patty, which was natural
enough. Many a night that winter I walked with him from Gloucester
Street to the Coffee House, to sit an hour over, a battle. And there
Master Tom and Dr. Hamilton, and other gay macaronies would sometimes
join us. Singleton had a greater contempt for Tom than I, but bore with
him for his sister's sake. For Tom, in addition to his other follies,
was become an open loyalist, and never missed his Majesty's health,
though he knew no better than my Hugo the question at issu