‘I really forget,’ said the young lady, coldly.

‘Has he made a declaration of love?’ demanded the aunt, the two red spots on her cheeks coming out steadily, and helping the flash of her eyes.

‘Certainly not,’ answered the young lady, with a stare of haughty surprise that was quite unaffected.

At the pleasant luncheon and dance on the grass that the officers gave, in that pretty field by the river, half-a-dozen of the young people had got beside the little brook that runs simpering and romping into the river just there.  Women are often good-natured in love matters where rivalry does not mix, and Miss Gertrude, all on a sudden, found herself alone with Mervyn.  Aunt Becky, from under the ash trees at the other end of the field, with great distinctness, for she was not a bit near-sighted, and considerable uneasiness, saw their tete-a-tete.  It was out of the question getting up in time to prevent the young people speaking their minds if so disposed, and she thought she perceived that in the young man’s bearing, which looked like a pleading and eagerness, and ’Gertrude’s put out a good deal—­I see by her plucking at those flowers—­but my head to a China orange—­the girl won’t think of him.  She’s not a young woman to rush into a horrible folly, hand-over-head,’ thought Aunt Becky; and then she began to think they were talking very much at length indeed, and to regret that she had not started at once from her post for the place of meeting; and one, and two, and three minutes passed, and perhaps some more, and Aunt Becky began to grow wroth, and was on the point of marching upon them, when they began slowly to walk towards the group who were plucking bunches of woodbine from the hedge across the little stream, at the risk of tumbling in, and distributing the flowers among the ladies, amidst a great deal of laughing and gabble.  Then Miss Gertrude made Mr. Mervyn rather a haughty and slight salutation, her aunt thought, and so dismissed him; he, too, made a bow, but a very low one, and walked straight off to the first lady he saw.

This happened to be mild little Mrs. Sturk, and he talked a good deal to her, but restlessly, and, as it seemed, with a wandering mind; and afterwards he conversed, with an affectation of interest—­it was only that—­Aunt Becky, who observed him with some curiosity, thought—­for a few minutes with Lilias Walsingham; and afterwards he talked with an effort, and so much animation and such good acceptance [though it was plain, Aunt Becky said, that he did not listen to one word she said,] to the fair Magnolia, that O’Flaherty had serious thoughts of horse-whipping him when the festivities were over—­for, as he purposed informing him, his ‘ungentlemanlike intherfarence.’

‘He has got his quietus,’ thought Aunt Becky, with triumph; ’this brisk, laughing carriage, and heightened colour, a woman of experience can see through at a glance.’

Yes, all this frisking and skipping is but the hypocrisy of bleeding vanity—­haeret lateri—­they are just the flush, wriggle, and hysterics of suppressed torture.