girls, and there are two or three very pretty ones. I will have them
here, one by one, to tea, if you like."

"I should particularly like it; especially as I should give you a chance
to see, by the profundity of my attention, that if I am not happy, it 's
not for want of taking pains."

Cecilia was silent a moment; and then, "On the whole," she resumed, "I
don't think there are any worth asking. There are none so very pretty,
none so very pleasing."

"Are you very sure?" asked the young man, rising and throwing away his
cigar-end.

"Upon my word," cried Cecilia, "one would suppose I wished to keep
you for myself. Of course I am sure! But as the penalty of your
insinuations, I shall invite the plainest and prosiest damsel that can
be found, and leave you alone with her."

Rowland smiled. "Even against her," he said, "I should be sorry to
conclude until I had given her my respectful attention."

This little profession of ideal chivalry (which closed the conversation)
was not quite so fanciful on Mallet's lips as it would have been on
those of many another man; as a rapid glance at his antecedents may help
to make the reader perceive. His life had been a singular mixture of the
rough and the smooth. He had sprung from a rigid Puritan stock, and had
been brought up to think much more intently of the duties of this life
than of its privileges and pleasures. His progenitors had submitted in
the matter of dogmatic theology to the relaxing influences of recent