"Vanity of vanities, all in vanity!" murmured Sir Norman, meditatively.
"Perhaps she is a relative of yours, Master Hubert, since you take such
an interest in her, and she looks so much like you."
"Not that I know of," said Hubert, in his careless way. "I believe I
was born minus those common domestic afflictions, relatives; and I don't
take the slightest interest in her, either; don't think it!"
"Then why are you in search of her?"
"For a very good reason--because I've been ordered to do so."
"By whom--your master?"
"My Lord Rochester," said that nobleman's page, waving off the
insinuation by a motion of his hand and a little displeased frown;
"he picked her up adrift, and being composed of highly inflammable
materials, took a hot and vehement fancy for her, which fact he did not
discover until your friend, Mr. Ormiston, had carried her off."
Sir Norman scowled.
"And so he sent you in search of her, has he?"
"Exactly so; and now you perceive the reason why it is quite important
that I find Mr. Ormiston. We do not know where he has taken her to, but
fancy it must be somewhere near the river."
"You do? I tell you what it is, my boy," exclaimed Sir Norman, suddenly
and in an elevated key, "the best thing you can do is, to go home and
go to bed, and never mind young ladies. You'll catch the plague before
you'll catch this particular young lady--I can tell you that!"
"Monsieur is excited," lisped the lad raining his hat end running his
taper fingers through his glossy, dark curls. "Is she as handsome as
they say she is, I wonder?"
"Handsome!" cried Sir Norman, lighting up with quite a new sensation at
the recollection. "I tell you handsome doesn't begin to describe her!
She is beautiful, lovely, angelic, divine--" Here Sir Norman's litany of
adjectives beginning to give out, he came to a sudden halt, with a face
as radiant as the sky at sunrise.
"Ah! I did not believe them, when they told me she was so much like
me; but if she in as near perfection as you describe, I shall begin to
credit it. Strange, is it not, that nature should make a duplicate of
her greatest earthly chef d'oeuvre?"
"You conceited young jackanapes!" growled Sir Norman, in deep
displeasure. "It is far stranger how such a bundle of vanity can
contrive to live in this work-a-day world. You are a foreigner, I
perceive?"
"Yes, Sir Norman, I am happy to say I am."
"You don't like England, then?"
"I'd be sorry to like it; a dirty, beggarly, sickly place as I ever
saw!"
Sir Norman eyed the slender specimen of foreign manhood, uttering this
sentiment is the sincerest of tones, and let his hand fall heavily on
his shoulder.