“Don’t flatter yourself that she will displease Corydon to dance with your lordship!” I said, laughingly.

“Pshaw! she would displease fifty Corydons if I chose to make her do so,” said Dalrymple, with a smile of conscious power.

“True; but not on her wedding-day.”

“Wedding-day or not, I beg to observe that in less than half an hour you will see me whirling along with my arm round little Phillis’s dainty waist.  Now come and see how I do it.”

He made his way through the crowd, and I, half curious, half abashed, went with him.  The party was five in number, consisting of the bride and bridegroom, a rosy, middle-aged peasant woman, evidently the mother of the bride, and an elderly couple who looked like humble townsfolk, and were probably related to one or other of the newly-married pair.  Dalrymple opened the attack by stumbling against the mother, and then overwhelming her with elaborate apologies.

“In these crowded places, Madame,” said he, in his fluent French, “one is scarcely responsible for an impoliteness.  I beg ten thousand pardons, however.  I hope I have not hurt you?”

“Ma foi! no, M’sieur.  It would take more than that to hurt me!”

“Nor injured your dress, I trust, Madame?”

“Ah, par exemple! do I wear muslins or gauzes that they should not bear touching?  No, no, no, M’sieur—­thanking you all the same.”

“You are very amiable, Madame, to say so.”

“You are very polite, M’sieur, to think so much of a trifle.”

“Nothing is a trifle, Madame, where a lady is concerned.  At least, so we Englishmen consider.”

“Bah!  M’sieur is not English?”

“Indeed, Madame, I am.”

“Mais, mon Dieu! c’est incroyable.  Suzette—­brother Jacques—­Andre, do you hear this?  M’sieur, here, swears that he is English, and yet he speaks French like one of ourselves!  Ah, what a fine thing learning is!”

“I may say with truth, Madame, that I never appreciate the advantages of education so highly, as when they enable me to converse with ladies who are not my own countrywomen,” said Dalrymple, carrying on the conversation with as much studied politeness as if his interlocutor had been a duchess.  “But—­excuse the observation—­you are here, I imagine, upon a happy occasion?”

The mother laughed, and rubbed her hands.

“Dame! one may see that,” replied she, “with one’s eyes shut!  Yes, M’sieur,—­yes—­their wedding-day, the dear children—­their wedding-day!  They’ve been betrothed these two years.”

“The bride is very like you, Madame,” said Dalrymple, gravely.  “Your younger sister, I presume?”

“Ah, quel farceur!  He takes my daughter for my sister!  Suzette, do you hear this?  M’sieur is killing me with laughter!”

And the good lady chuckled, and gasped, and wiped her eyes, and dealt Dalrymple a playful push between the shoulders, which would have upset the balance of any less heavy dragoon.