It was early summer: the curtains were undrawn, the windows were half
opened, and the moonlight slept on the little grassplot that surrounded
the house. The guests were in high spirits. "Fill me this goblet," cried
Godolphin; "champagne is the boy's liquor; I will return to it con amore.
Fanny, let us pledge each other: stay: a toast!--What shall it be?"

"Hope till old age, and Memory afterwards," said Fanny, smiling.

"Pshaw! theatricals still, Fan?" growled Saville, who had placed a large
screen between himself and the window; "no sentiment between friends."

"Out on you, Saville," said Godolphin; "as well might you say no music out
of the opera; these verbal prettinesses colour conversation. But your
roues are so d----d prosaic, you want us to walk to Vice without a flower
by the way."

"Vice indeed!" cried Saville. "I abjure your villanous appellatives. It
was in your companionship that I lost my character, and now you turn
king's evidence against the poor devil you seduced."

"Humph!" cried Godolphin gaily; "you remind me of the advice of the
Spanish hidalgo to a servant: always choose a master with a good memory:
for 'if he does not pay, he will at least remember that he owes you.' In
future, I shall take care to herd only with those who recollect, after
they are finally debauched, all the good advice I gave them beforehand."

"Meanwhile," said the pretty Fanny, with her arch mouth half-full of
chicken, "I shall recollect that Mr. Saville drinks his wine without
toasts--as being a useless delay."