bristling manner.

"Your opinion, Sir," he replied, with undiminished affability, "tends
to relieve my apprehensions. I trust the event will justify it.

"And how does Miss Desire, this evening?" he added, saluting with
doffed hat and a courtly bow, a young lady who had just come up, with
the apparent intention of going in at the Woodbridge gate.

"I do but indifferent well, Sir. As well as a damsel may do in a world
where gentlemen keep not their promises," she answered, with a
curtsey, so saucily deep, that the crisp crimson silk of her skirt
rustled on the ground.

"Nay, but tell me the caitiff's name, and let me be myself your
knight, fair mistress, to redress your wrongs."

"Nay, 'tis yourself, Sir. Did you not promise you would come and hear
me play my piano, when it came from Boston, and I have it a week
already?"

"And I did not know it. Yes, now I bethink myself, Mrs. Sedgwick spoke
thereof, but this convention has left me not a moment. But damsels are
not political; no doubt you have heard nothing of the convention."

"Oh, yes; 'tis that all the poor want to be rich, and to hang all the
lawyers. I've heard. 'Tis a fine scheme."

"No doubt the piano is most excellent in sound."