"I say, Beauty, were you ever near doing anything serious--asking anybody to marry you, eh?
I suppose you have been--they do make such awful hard running on one" and the poor hunted Seraph stretched his magnificent limbs with the sigh of a martyred innocent.
"I was once--only once!" "Ah, by Jove! And what saved you ?" The Seraph lifted himself a little, with a sort of pitying, sympathizing curiosity toward a fellow-sufferer.
"Well, I'll tell you," said Bertie, with a sigh as of a man who hated long sentences, and who was about to plunge into a painful past.

"It's ages ago; day I was at a Drawing room; year Blue Ruin won the Clearwell for Royal, I think.

Wedged up there, in that poking place, I saw such a face--the deuce, it almost makes me feel enthusiastic now.

She was just out--an angel with a train! She had delicious eyes--like a spaniel's you know--a cheek like this peach, and lips like that strawberry there, on the top of your ice.

She looked at me, and I was in love! I knew who she was--Irish lord's daughter--girl I could have had for the asking; and I vow that I thought I would ask her--I actually was as far gone as that; I actually said to myself, I'd hang about her a week or two, and then propose.