We shall call you in, however, if there is any occasion; so pray do not look so grave upon it.

Besides, it is a shame to you not to understand field-sports--What will you do should our uncle in Crane-Alley ask you the signs by which you track a badger ?" "Ay, true, Die,--true," said Sir Hildebrand, with a sigh, "I misdoubt Rashleigh will be found short at the leap when he is put to the trial.

An he would ha' learned useful knowledge like his brothers, he was bred up where it grew, I wuss; but French antics, and book-learning, with the new turnips, and the rats, and the Hanoverians, ha' changed the world that I ha' known in Old England--But come along with us, Rashie, and carry my hunting-staff, man; thy cousin lacks none of thy company as now, and I wonna ha' Die crossed--It's ne'er be said there was but one woman in Osbaldistone Hall, and she died for lack of her will." Rashleigh followed his father, as he commanded, not, however, ere he had whispered to Diana, "I suppose I must in discretion bring the courtier, Ceremony, in my company, and knock when I approach the door of the library ?" "No, no, Rashleigh," said Miss Vernon; "dismiss from your company the false archimage Dissimulation, and it will better ensure your free access to our classical consultations." So saying, she led the way to the library, and I followed--like a criminal, I was going to say, to execution; but, as I bethink me, I have used the simile once, if not twice before.

Without any simile at all, then, I followed, with a sense of awkward and conscious embarrassment, which I would have given a great deal to shake off.

I thought it a degrading and unworthy feeling to attend one on such an occasion, having breathed the air of the Continent long enough to have imbibed the notion that lightness, gallantry, and something approaching to well-bred self-assurance, should distinguish the gentleman whom a fair lady selects for her companion in a _tete-a-tete._ My English feelings, however, were too many for my French education, and I made, I believe, a very pitiful figure, when Miss Vernon, seating herself majestically in a huge elbow-chair in the library, like a judge about to hear a cause of importance, signed to me to take a chair opposite to her (which I did, much like the poor fellow who is going to be tried), and entered upon conversation in a tone of bitter irony..