Which Relates Sundry Happenings at the Garden Fete

"Gad, Beverley! how the deuce did y' do it?"

"Do what, Marquis?"

"Charm the Serpent! Tame the Dragon!"

"Dragon?"

"Make such a conquest of her Graceless Grace of Camberhurst, my
great-aunt? I didn't know you were even acquainted,--how long have
you known her?"

"About an hour," said Barnabas.

"Eh--an hour? But, my dear fellow, you came to see her--over the wall,
you know,--she said so, and--"

"She said so, yes, Marquis, but--"

"But? Oh, I see! Ah, to be sure! She is my great-aunt, of course,
and my great-aunt, Beverley, generally thinks, and does, and
says--exactly what she pleases. Begad! you never can tell what she'
11 be up to next,--consequently every one is afraid of her, even
those high goddesses of the beau monde, those exclusive grandes dames,
my Ladies Castlereagh, Jersey, Cowper and the rest of 'em--they're
all afraid of my small great-aunt, and no wonder! You see, she's
old--older than she looks, and--with a perfectly diabolical memory!
She knows not only all their own peccadillos, but the sins of their
great-grandmothers as well. She fears nothing on the earth, or under
the earth, and respects no one--not even me. Only about half an hour
ago she informed me that I was a--well, she told me precisely what I
was,--and she can be painfully blunt, Beverley,--just because Cleone
happens to have refused me again."

"Again?" said Barnabas inquiringly.

"Oh, yes! She does it regularly. Begad! she's refused me so often
that it's grown into a kind of formula with us now. I say, 'Cleone,
do!' and she answers, 'Bob, don't!' But even that's something,--lots
of 'em haven't got so far as that with her."