( 299 )
wonders, will you let me ask, in what capacity it has pleased their impships to conjure you hither?"
Juliet hesitated, and looked ashamed to answer.
"You are not, I hope," cried he, fixing upon her his keen eyes, "one of those ill-starred damsels, whose task, in the words of Madame de Maintenon, is to "amuse the unamuseable?" You are not, I hope, . . . ." he stopt, as if seeking a phrase, and then, rather faintly, added, "her companion?"
"Her humble servant, Sir!" with a forced smile, said Juliet; "and yet, humbled as I feel myself in that capacity, not humble enough for its calls!"
The smiles of the old Baronet vanished in a moment, and an expression of extreme severity took their place. "She uses you ill, then?" he indignantly cried, and, grasping the knobs of his two crutches, he struck their points against the floor, with a heaviness that made the little building shake, ejacu-
