She was really very handsome--"you are too _old_, Count.

You must be more than nine." "Pardon me," said I, "I _am_ nine,--a very mystical number nine is too, and represents the Muses, who, you know, were always attendant upon Venus--or you, which is the same thing; so you can no more dispense with my company than you can with that of the Graces." "Good morning, Sir William," cried the Lady Hasselton, rising.
I offered to hand her to the door; with great difficulty, for her hoop was of the very newest enormity of circumference; I effected this object.

"Well, Count," said she, "I am glad to see you have brought so much learning from school; make the best use of it while it lasts, for your memory will not furnish you with a single simile out of the mythology by the end of next winter." "That would be a pity," said I, "for I intend having as many goddesses as the heathens had, and I should like to worship them in a classical fashion." "Oh, the young reprobate!" said the beauty, tapping me with her fan.
"And pray, what other deities besides Venus do I resemble ?" "All!" said I,--"at least, all the celestial ones!" Though half way through the door, the beauty extricated her hoop, and drew back.

"Bless me, the gods as well as the goddesses ?" "Certainly." "You jest: tell me how." "Nothing can be easier; you resemble Mercury because of your thefts." "Thefts!" "Ay; stolen hearts, and," added I, in a whisper, "glances; Jupiter, partly because of your lightning, which you lock up in the said glances,--principally because all things are subservient to you; Neptune, because you are as changeable as the seas; Vulcan, because you live among the flames you excite; and Mars, because--" "You are so destructive," cried my uncle.
"Exactly so; and because," added I--as I shut the door upon the beauty--"because, thanks to your hoop, you cover nine acres of ground." "Ods fish, Morton," said my uncle, "you surprise me at times: one while you are so reserved, at another so assured; to-day so brisk, to-morrow so gloomy.

Why now, Lady Hasselton (she is very comely, eh! faith, but not comparable to her mother) told me, a week ago, that she, gave you up in despair, that you were dull, past hoping for; and now, 'Gad, you had a life in you that Sid himself could not have surpassed.