Oh, pretty Lilias--oh, true lady--I never saw the pleasant crayon sketch that my mother used to speak of, but the tradition of thee has come to me--so bright and tender, with its rose and violet tints, and merry, melancholy dimples, that I see thee now, as then, with the dew of thy youth still on thee, and sigh as I look, as if on a lost, early love of mine.
'I'm out of conceit with myself,' he said; 'I'm so idle and useless; I wish that were all--I wish myself better, but I'm such a weak coxcomb--a father-confessor might keep me nearer to my duty--some one to scold and exhort me.

Perhaps if some charitable lady would take me in hand, something might be made of me still.' There was a vein of seriousness in this reverie which amused the young lady; for she had never heard anything worse of him--very young ladies seldom do hear the worst--than that he had played once or twice rather high.
'Shall I ask Gertrude Chattesworth to speak to her Aunt Rebecca ?' said Lilias slyly.

'Suppose you attend her school in Martin's Row, with "better late than never" over her chimneypiece: there are two pupils of your own sex, you know, and you might sit on the bench with poor Potts and good old Doolan.' 'Thank you.

Miss Lilias,' he answered, with a bow and a little laugh, as it seemed just the least bit in the world piqued; 'I know she would do it zealously; but neither so well nor so wisely as others might; I wish I dare ask _you_ to lecture me.' 'I!' said that young lady.

'Oh, yes, I forgot,' she went on merrily,' five years ago, when I was a little girl, you once called me Dr.
Walsingham's curate, I was so grave--do you remember ?' She did not know how much obliged Devereux was to her for remembering that poor little joke, and how much the handsome lieutenant would have given, at that instant, to kiss the hand of the grave little girl of five years ago.
'I was a more impudent fellow then,' he said, 'than I am now; won't you forget my old impertinences, and allow me to make atonement, and be your--your _very_ humble servant now ?' She laughed.