certainly charming. I really think I shall come every day this week, beginning with to-morrow—" this with a little affected chirrup which might signify that I did not really mean it.
Ah, they would tell Hector, and he would accompany them to-morrow. For a beginner in the fashionable art of diplomacy, I was not so bad after all. They looked admiringly after me as I went, and I felt that they would gaze in my direction long after I could see them.
I was formally introduced to Mr. Dasy the following day. The modest hop merchant was completely overwhelmed. He grew purple in the face at everything I said for the first quarter of an hour, which means that his countenance was tinged with that royal hue during the entire fifteen minutes, for he allowed me to do all the talking. I did not flirt. I tried to do so, but could not succeed. I spoke sensibly, flattered Mr. Dasy a little—if that does not give discredit to my statement that I spoke sensibly—and simply allowed him to see that I liked talking to him. Hector certainly was not given to flattery.
He told me all about hops, the magnificent
