'That was before I saw you, child,' he said.

'In your company--' 'You are scarcely more lively,' she answered saucily.

'Do you flatter yourself that you are ?' Sir George was astonished.

He was aware that the girl lacked neither wit nor quickness; but hitherto he had found her passionate at one time, difficult and _farouche_ at another, at no time playful or coquettish.
Here, and this morning, she did not seem to be the same woman.

She spoke with ease, laughed with the heart as well as the lips, met his eyes with freedom and without embarrassment, countered his sallies with sportiveness--in a word, carried herself towards him as though she were an equal; precisely as Lady Betty and the Honourable Fanny carried themselves.