"Why, dear Sir, what in the world could they do with it? unless, indeed, they were to let some man paint it for an opera scene."

"A worthy use indeed!" cried Mr Delvile, more and more affronted: "and pray does your ladyship talk thus to my Lord Duke?"

"O yes; and he never minds it at all."

"It were strange if he did!" cried Mrs Delvile; "my only astonishment is that anybody can be found who does mind it."

"Why now, Mrs Delvile," she answered, "pray be sincere; can you possibly think this Gothic ugly old place at all comparable to any of the new villas about town?"

"Gothic ugly old place!" repeated Mr Delvile, in utter amazement at her dauntless flightiness; "your ladyship really does my humble dwelling too much honour!"

"Lord, I beg a thousand pardons!" cried she, "I really did not think of what I was saying. Come, dear Miss Beverley, and walk out with me, for I am too much shocked to stay a moment longer."

And then, taking Cecilia by the arm, she hurried her into the park, through a door which led thither from the parlour.

"For heaven's sake, Lady Honoria," said Cecilia, "could you find no better entertainment for Mr Delvile than ridiculing his own house?"

"O," cried she, laughing, "did you never hear us quarrel before? why when I was here last summer, I used to affront him ten times a day."

"And was that a regular ceremony?"

"No, really, I did not do it purposely; but it so happened; either by talking of the castle, or the tower, or the draw-bridge, or the fortifications; or wishing they were all employed to fill up that odious moat; or something of that sort; for you know a small matter will put him out of humour."

"And do you call it so small a matter to wish a man's whole habitation annihilated?"

"Lord, I don't wish anything about it! I only say so to provoke him."

"And what strange pleasure can that give you?"

"O the greatest in the world! I take much delight in seeing anybody in a passion. It makes them look so excessively ugly!"

"And is that the way you like every body should look, Lady Honoria?"

"O my dear, if you mean me, I never was in a passion twice in my life: for as soon as ever I have provoked the people, I always run away. But sometimes I am in a dreadful fright lest they should see me laugh, for they make such horrid grimaces it is hardly possible to look at them. When my father has been angry with me, I have sometimes been obliged to pretend I was crying, by way of excuse for putting my handkerchief to my face: for really he looks so excessively hideous, you would suppose he was making mouths, like the children, merely to frighten one."




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