"
"Oh, Babie, you to be the author of a chivalrous romance!" said
Fordham.
"I was young and silly then," said the young lady, who was within a
month of sixteen.
"And all your romances are to be henceforth without love," said
Armine.
"I think they would be much more sensible," said Babie. "Why do you
all laugh so? Don't you see how stupid poor Allen always is? And it
can even spoil Miss Ogilvie, and make her inattentive."
"Poor Allen," echoed one or two voices, in the same low tone, for as
they peeped out beyond the orange-tree, Allen might be seen, extended
on a many-coloured rug, in an exceedingly deplorable attitude.
"O yes," said Sydney; "but if one has such a—-such a-—such an object
as that, one must expect to be stupid and miserable sometimes!"
"She must have been worrying him again," said Babie.
"O yes, didn't you see?" said Armine. "No, I remember you didn't go
out riding early to-day."
"No, I was finishing Miss Ogilvie's wedding lace."
"Well, that French captain, that Elfie went on with at the
commandant's ball, came riding up in full splendour, and trotted
alongside of her, chattering away, she bowing and smiling, and
playing off all her airs, and at last letting him give her a great
white flower. Didn't you see it in her breast at breakfast? Poor
Allen was looking as if he had eaten wormwood all the time when he
was forced to fall back upon me, and I suppose he has been having it
out with her and has got the worst of it.
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