got over her one night classing him with his "young man" and myself, as
three of the shyest monkeys she ever came across.'

'She won't say so of Maurice,' said Laura, as they recovered the laugh.

'I heard her deluding some young lady by saying he was the eldest son,'
said Mrs. Edmonstone.

'Mamma!' cried Amy, 'could she have thought so?'

'I put in a gentle hint on Lord de Courcy's existence, to which she
answered, in her quick way, 'O ay, I forgot; but then he is the second,
and that's the next thing.'

'If you could but have heard the stories she and Maurice were telling
each other!' said Guy. 'He was playing her off, I believe; for
whatever she told, he capped it with something more wonderful. Is she
really a lady?'

'By birth,' said Mrs. Edmonstone. It is only her high spirits and
small judgment that make her so absurd.'

'How loud she is, too!' said Laura. 'What was all that about horses,
Guy?'

'She was saying she drove two such spirited horses, that all the grooms
were afraid of them; and when she wanted to take out her little boy,
Mr. Brownlow said "You may do as you like my dear, but I won't have my
son's neck broken, whatever you do with your own." So Maurice answered
by declaring he knew a lady who drove not two, but four-in-hand, and