Indeed I will endeavour to comprehend you.' Thus humble, the Countess bade him give her his arm.

He stuck it out with abrupt eagerness.
'Not against my cheek.' She laughed forgivingly.

'And you need not start back half-a-mile,' she pursued with plain humour: 'and please do not look irresolute and awkward--It is not necessary,' she added.

'There!'; and she settled her fingers on him, 'I am glad I can find one or two things to instruct you in.Begin.You are a great cricketer.

What else ?' Ay! what else?
Harry might well say he had no wish to talk of himself.
He did not know even how to give his arm to a lady! The first flattery and the subsequent chiding clashed in his elated soul, and caused him to deem himself one of the blest suddenly overhauled by an inspecting angel and found wanting: or, in his own more accurate style of reflection, 'What a rattling fine woman this is, and what a deuce of a fool she must think me!' The Countess leaned on his arm with dainty languor.
'You walk well,' she said.
Harry's backbone straightened immediately.
'No, no; I do not want you to be a drill-sergeant.