rive mad a whole conclave of milliners! Then her postures are so
strange--she does so stoop and lollop, as the women call it, so cross
her legs and square her arms--were the goddess of grace to look down on
her, it would put her to flight for ever!"

"And you are willing to make this awkward, ill-dressed, unmannered
dowdy, your Countess, Etherington; you, for whose critical eye half the
town dress themselves?" said Jekyl.

"It is all a trick, Hal--all an assumed character to get rid of me, to
disgust me, to baffle me; but I am not to be had so easily. The brother
is driven to despair--he bites his nails, winks, coughs, makes signs,
which she always takes up at cross-purpose.--I hope he beats her after I
go away; there would be a touch of consolation, were one but certain of
that."

"A very charitable hope, truly, and your present feelings might lead the
lady to judge what she may expect after wedlock. But," added Jekyl,
"cannot you, so skilful in fathoming every mood of the female mind,
divine some mode of engaging her in conversation?"

"Conversation!" replied the Earl; "why, ever since the shock of my first
appearance was surmounted, she has contrived to vote me a nonentity; and
that she may annihilate me completely, she has chosen, of all
occupations, that of working a stocking! From what cursed old
antediluvian, who lived before the invention of spinning-jennies, she
learned this craft, Heaven only knows; but there she sits, with her work
pinned to her knee--not the pretty taper silken fabric, with which
Jeannette of Amiens coquetted, while Tristram Shandy was observing her
progress; but a huge worsted bag, designed for some flat-footed old
pauper, with heels like an elephant--And there she squats, counting all
the stitches as she works, and refusing to speak, or listen, or look up,
under pretence that it disturbs her calculation!"

"An elegant occupation, truly, and I wonder it does not work a cure upon
her noble admirer," said Jekyl.

"Confound her--no--she shall not trick me. And then amid this
affectation of vulgar stolidity, there break out such sparkles of
exultation, when she thinks she has succeeded in baffling her brother,
and in plaguing me, that, by my faith, Hal, I could not tell, were it at
my option, whether to kiss or to cuff her."

"You are determined to go on with this strange affair, then?" said
Jekyl.

"On--on--on, my boy!--Clara and Nettlewood for ever!" answered the Earl.
"Besides this