Buttons first; then surplices." "Thirdly, For( r)esters, I suppose," suggested Bell, saucily.
"Undoubtedly," assented her companion.

"Miss Vernor, your humble servant." His glance, as it invaribly did when they met, seemed to make swift, approbative note of every smallest particular of her appearance.
"Mr.Halloway, here is a young lady who has just openly informed me that she prefers you to me, so I suppose I must resign her to you with what grace I can.

Don't you think, Miss Vernor, you might try to divert my mind from dwelling too cruelly on Miss Masters' defalcation by showing me what Mr.Hardcastle's grand intellect has devised for my entertainment?
That bonfire yonder has a sort of cannibalistic look about it suggestive of dancing negroes and unmentionable feasts behind the flames.

Shall we inspect it nearer ?" And he marched Gerald deliberately away, scarcely remembering to bow to Bell.

Still, to be left with Mr.Halloway was by no means an unenviable fate, and Bell, like the wise girl she was, proceeded to make the most of it without delay, and paraded her prey wherever she chose, finding him much more tractable than her last companion, and not in the least dictatorial as to the direction he went in.
That out-door evening party was long remembered as one of the most novel and successful entertainments ever given in Joppa.