“Well, Mrs. Lindsay, I’m glad to see you.  How do you do, madam?  Is your son with you?” he added, shaking hands with her.

“No, my lord.”

“O! an embassadress, then?”

“Something in that capacity, my lord.”

“Then I must be on my sharps, for I am told you are a keen one.  But tell me—­do you sleep with one eye open, as I do?”

“Indeed, my lord,” she replied, laughing, “I sleep as other people do, with both eyes shut.”

“Well, then, what’s your proposal?—­and, mark me, I’m wide awake.”

“By all accounts, my lord, you have seldom been otherwise.  How could you have played your cards so well and so succassfully if you had not?”

“Come, that’s not bad—­just what I expected, and I like to deal with clever people.  Did you put yourself on the whetstone before you came here?  I’ll go bail you did.”

“If I did not I would have little chance in dealing with your lordship,” replied Mrs, Lindsay.

“Come, I like that, too;—­well said, and nothing but the truth.  In fact it will be diamond cut diamond between us—­eh?”

“Precisely, my lord.  You will find me as sharp as your lordship, for the life of you.”

“Come, confound me, I like that best of all—­a touch of my own candor;—­we’re kindred spirits, Mrs. Lindsay.”

“I think so, my lord.  We should have been man and wife.”

“Egad, if we had I shouldn’t have played second fiddle, as I’m told poor Lindsay does; however, no matter about that—­even a good second is not so bad.  But now about the negotiations—­come, give a specimen of your talents.  Let us come to the point.”

“Well, then, I am here, my lord, to propose, in the name of my son Woodward, for the hand of Miss Riddle, your niece.”

“I see; no regard for the property she is to have, eh?”

“Do you think me a fool, my lord?  Do you imagine that any one of common sense would or should overlook such an element between parties who propose to marry?  Whatever my son may do—­who is deeply attached to Miss Riddle—­I am sure I do not, nor will not, overlook it; you may rest assured of that, my lord.”

Old Cockletown looked keenly at her, and their eyes met; but, after a long and steady gaze, the eyes of the old peer quailed, and he felt, when put to an encounter with hers, that to which was attributed such extraordinary influence.  There sparkled in her steady black orb a venomous exultation, mingled with a spirit of strong and contemptuous derision, which made the eccentric old nobleman feel rather uncomfortable.  His eye fell, and, considering his age, it was decidedly a keen one.  He fidgeted upon the chair—­he coughed, hemmed, then looked about the room, and at length exclaimed, rather in a soliloquy,—­

“Second fiddle! egad, I’m afraid had we been man and wife I should never have got beyond it.  Poor Lindsay!  It’s confoundedly odd, though.”