"Go and talk to her, you perverse creature, and send him over to me." Lord Petherton, a minute later, had joined her; old Edward had left the room with Mrs.Donner; his wife and Lady Fanny were still more closely engaged; and the young Agnesina, though visibly a little scared at Mitchy's queer countenance, had begun, after the fashion he had touched on to Mrs.Brook, politely to invoke the aid of the idea of habit.

"Look here--you must help me," the Duchess said to Petherton.
"You can, perfectly--and it's the first thing I've yet asked of you." "Oh, oh, oh!" her interlocutor laughed.
"I must have Mitchy," she went on without noticing his particular shade of humour.
"Mitchy too ?"--he appeared to wish to leave her in no doubt of it.
"How low you are!" she simply said.

"There are times when I despair of you.

He's in every way your superior, and I like him so that--well, he must like HER.

Make him feel that he does." Lord Petherton turned it over as something put to him practically.