Captain De Crespigny continued to visit at St. John's Lodge almost daily, having now adopted a quite-at-home style, dropping in at all hours of the morning or evening, partly in the character of a cousin, partly as a convivial friend of Sir Patrick's, and solely, in the estimation of Agnes, as her devoted admirer; but not one of the motives which ostensibly brought him there was the real one. He kept up long, animated, horse-and-dog conversations with Sir Patrick, and love-and-nonsense conversations with Agnes; but his whole thoughts and attention were secretly devoted to Marion, to so engrossing an extent, that he became astonished even at himself. She was always exceedingly busy about something when he called—more frequently out of the room than in it, while he staid, and so constantly sat down to write letters or notes while he talked to Sir Patrick, that one day, in a tone of pique, he said, writing at such a rate, she would soon be several volumes a-head of Sir Walter Scott; but still Marion continued as much pre-occupied in his presence, and as good-humoredly indifferent as before. She treated him, as the friend of Sir Patrick, almost like a brother, and was not in the slightest degree agitated, when he flew, with fascinating empressement, to light the taper for her, to open the door, or to pay any of the ten thousand little attentions with which he was accustomed to dazzle and delight the hundred and one other young ladies among whom he had hitherto divided himself. It was absolutely insufferable to see her so perfectly self-possessed and conversible, without a thought of being admired, always ready with a reply when he spoke to her, and amused with his jests, but not sufficiently interested by his presence, to attempt being either attractive or repulsive. Seeing him approach the table one day several times while she was writing, Marion said at last,

"Is there anything here I can give you? anything you want?"

"Yes!" said Captain De Crespigny, in a low, agitated voice. "I do want more than I dare ask; more than I shall perhaps ever obtain."

Marion at these words glanced with astonishment towards Agnes, and privately thought her sister's lover must require very great encouragement indeed, if he were not satisfied with all he got; but unwilling to interfere in any differences that might have arisen between them, she calmly resumed her employment, unconscious that the eyes of Captain De Crespigny were fixed upon her with a look of disappointment and pique, because she had not so much as favored him with a conscious blush.

Nothing surprised and amused the young mind of Marion half so much, as the light raillery and gay persiflage, which continually passed between her brother and Captain De Crespigny, whose conversation was enlivened with sallies of good-humored malice against each other, and lively satire, which sometimes approached the verge, and often even passed the verge of civility, while each seemed to have conferred on his friend the royal privilege of saying or doing no wrong, so that the pointed arrows they levelled at each other became feathers before they reached their aim.

"I must give the Abbey people a ball!" exclaimed Sir Patrick one day, after whistling for some time with his back to the fire. "The Children of the Abbey, as we gentlemen in difficulties are called! A dance of ruined people! What a capital hit!"

"Like Holbein's dance of death!" observed Marion. "Our creditors would all come, I suppose, and take out a dividend in cakes and ices! You are, of course, not serious, Patrick!"

"Why not? You are always ready with an opinion, like a lawyer expecting a fee; but remember, Marion, the attorney waits at least till he is asked! I am as serious now as I ever am about anything. Let me make the neighbors and the neighborhood expire with envy and admiration! You know the last kick of a dying horse is always the strongest. Agnes, fetch your visiting book, and we shall get up a splendid impromptu, to be paid for with my surplus income! Ah! here comes De Crespigny, as he always does, at the very moment we were wishing for him."

"Because there is never a moment, I suppose, that you are not wishing for me!" replied he, fixing his expostulating eye on Sir Patrick. "I owe myself to society, and make a duty of paying visits from pure benevolence, because in every house I find people perfectly dying for my arrival. If I had three hands to shake, I would divide them equally amongst you; but I have only one to offer," added Captain De Crespigny, with lively emphasis, as he extended his to Agnes, who stood nearest him.

"You belong, I believe, to the Modest Assurance Company," said she, with a blush and a smile. "But after this little outbreak of vanity, we really do want your advice."

"That is a thing I never either give or take. The word should be drummed out of the English language."

"Then," added Sir Patrick, "pray lend us your opinion."

"No, Dunbar! I lend you nothing! Remember our agreement. Can't afford bad debts! Better give you half-a-crown than lend you a shilling."

"De Crespigny, your wit is as sharp to-day as that American scythe, the shadow of which cut a man's leg off! I owe you one for the last hit!"

"Ten to one you never pay me! I have serious thoughts of taking rooms in the sanctuary myself soon, because it displays beauties and attractions beyond any other part of the world. Positively, I see no place like it, and no people like its inhabitants."

Sir Patrick's hearty laugh rang through the room, while Agnes smiled with conscious triumph; and Marion, who had been for several minutes planning an escape to the Granvilles, thought this a favorable opportunity to steal off unobserved, and had safely reached the door, when Sir Patrick hastily summoned her back.

"Marion! where are you shying off to so hastily? Are you under a vow of solitude? There is no keeping you in the room for a minute now."

"Never mind me!" said Captain De Crespigny, assuming a tone of good-humored conceit, to disguise a great deal of real pique. "I am not so bad as I look."

"No!" replied Agnes, laughing. "That is exactly what the keeper at the Zoological Gardens says of the ourang outang!"

"Don't be put out of countenance by her, De Crespigny! you'll do," said Sir Patrick. "I've seen worse looking people in the world! I knew a gentleman once, much plainer than you are, who got on very well!"

"Sir Patrick Dunbar, for instance, or some other, with no pretensions whatever! Really, old fellow! I am much the best looking of the two, if people would only think so. It is astonishing the sort of men who pass themselves off upon the world for being handsome—quite an imposition."

"Quite!" replied Sir Patrick, and the two gentlemen laughingly glanced at each other. "I am quite obliged to you for that remark; but as I see the watch of your wit is wound up for a reply, pray let it strike."

"No, I am not revengeful! As somebody said to somebody, some day when they were talking about something, I have 'a soul above buttons.' But positively," continued Captain De Crespigny, gazing around, as if he had made a sudden discovery, and letting his eye rest upon Marion, "to do ourselves justice, Dunbar, we in this room are a remarkably good looking party."

"To be sure we are! You never said a truer thing!" replied Sir Patrick. "So obvious, indeed, that it was scarcely worth remarking. I remember the time, De Crespigny, when you used to copy me—to imitate the inimitable; and positively, with such tolerable success, that I very nearly bowed to myself one day for you."

"Well, Patrick!" said Agnes, "I do think you are like nobody else, and like nothing human I ever saw; and yet I have a great turn for finding out resemblances. How very like Wednesdays are to Thursdays!"

"Astonishingly so!" replied Captain De Crespigny, adding, with one of his most indescribable looks, "but I see not the slightest resemblance between your sister and you."

Agnes smiled one of her brightest smiles at what must, she thought, be intended most unquestionably as a compliment; but though the difference appeared obvious enough, the superiority, judging from the direction and the expression of Captain De Crespigny's eyes, was not by any means so decided a point as Agnes seemed willing to believe.

"De Crespigny!" said Sir Patrick, with one of his most satirical looks. "Do you really now, in serious earnest, call yourself dressed? It is very well as a joke; but you are surely not got up in that style for the day? In the name of all that is hideous, who is your tailor, that I may avoid him? Does he call that thing you wear a coat?"

"No!"

"Then, pray, what does he call it?"

"A surtout! and such a one as you never had since you wore a cap and cockade! It is a real original Dodds! I could bet the amount of your bill, whatever that may be, probably with several years' interest—a few hundreds—that you will never be half so well fitted. If you want a coat—a real undeniable, irreproachable coat, fit for a gentleman to be seen in—employ my tailor in St. James' street; he will make a man of you!"

"From a certain cut of tigerism in the collar, I guessed he lived in Cheapside or the Strand! Never employ him again! I would not allow him to dress me if he offered to do it for nothing! Have more regard for yourself, De Crespigny, and never be betrayed into trusting him again. He is totally incapable of his business! You might as well expect a Whig Ministry to form a tolerable Administration. The thing is not upon the cards!"

"Pray, attend now to my cards!" interrupted Agnes. "If you are got upon politics, there will be no slipping in a word edgewise about my ball; and the joy of planning it quite turns my head."

"You turn every other head, so it is but fair that your own should share the same fate!" observed Captain De Crespigny, with a light and careless laugh; but what he said was neither lightly nor carelessly received by Agnes; for the color rushed in vivid brilliancy to her cheek, while she bent her head to conceal a smile of pleasure; yet when Marion looked up suddenly from her drawing, the eyes of Captain De Crespigny were again fixed on herself, as he added, "I wish those I admire the most had a few imperfections to make them human."

"I should not think any one thoroughly liked me who saw them," observed Agnes, in a tone of gratified vanity. "And now for business, Pat! Here is a correct list of our acquaintances!"

"But I want an incorrect one!" replied Sir Patrick, jocularly seizing the catalogue of names. "I hate anything correct! Let me see! Here are some tolerable people enough! This is not a bad world, after all, if one could pick out those who are ornamental, and pass an act of extermination upon all who are objectionable in manner, appearance, circumstances, or disposition. In such a case, it might really become fit for a gentleman to live in!"

Agnes' visiting-book was now carefully revised, while the party seemed to think they had met only to pass sentence on all their acquaintances. No subject appeared so exhaustless as the faults and follies of their particular friends; their poverty, wealth, avarice, or extravagance; while the liveliness of their conversation, instead of emanating, like that of the Granvilles, from the gay fancies and spontaneous sparklings of their own minds, was almost entirely derived from the follies and personal defects of others; and Marion could not but remember with a smile the country clergyman, who said once from the pulpit, that "people should never speak ill of their neighbors,—except among a few friends!"

"Let us invite only the tolerable-looking girls in each family, and no chaperons with turbans and large caps to overshadow the room," said Captain De Crespigny, drawing a broad dash of his pen through the name of Lady Towercliffe. "Her large, featureless face, looks like a wax doll which had been put before the fire till it melted; and she is as dull as a dormouse."

"We did enough for her in going to that heavy turn-out of a ball," added Sir Patrick. "I very nearly 'struck work,' on finding myself expected to dance with one of those plain, elderly daughters. Lady Charlotte is quite a laide ideal."

"I was pressed into the service, too!" continued Captain De Crespigny, in an injured tone, "and did not recover the annoyance till—till my last quadrille!" added he, glancing expressively at Marion. "If one must dance with plain girls at their own parties, I wish they would wear veils."

"Poor Lady Charlotte's figure is a perfect pyramid, narrow at the shoulders, and becoming thicker to the ankles," observed Agnes, laughing. "She got no partner the first half of the night, but being very fond of dancing, she stood near the corner of every dance, and was turned sometimes by mistake!"

"Very good for an impromptu, Agnes! The old girl gets a partner once a-year, I believe," added Sir Patrick. "If people will not be beauties, I can't help it; but I wonder at any one who had such a foot as Lady Charlotte's, would wish to live. It is so enormous that the eye cannot take it in all at once! The gout is nothing in comparison! De Crespigny, if you are ever shipwrecked at sea, you could desire no better boat than one of her shoes, and a paddle!"

"Her hand, too!" exclaimed Captain De Crespigny, shrugging his shoulders, and admiring his nails. "Mine is ashamed to look so insignificant beside it! Positively I awoke one forenoon, after my hand had been stung by a wasp, and seeing something so large, red, and swelled, I never recognized my own, but seized hold of it in the most friendly manner, saying, 'Ah, Lady Charlotte Malcolm!——'"

"I have heard," observed Marion, "that the celebrated Hogarth often lamented how completely his sense of the ridiculous had destroyed his sense of the beautiful; so that even in the face of an angel he could not avoid observing something to caricature; and I think some of us, if we do not take care, will soon be in danger of a similar calamity."

"Well!" exclaimed Sir Patrick, eagerly, "Let me enjoy a jest to-day, even if I were to die for it to-morrow."

"You, gentlemen, are both too bad!" said Agnes, lazily extending her own beautiful foot on a footstool. "Charlotte Malcolm has already a whole tier of double chins; her throat must have once belonged to a flamingo, and her complexion is like the models we see from abroad in terra cotta; but then, to do her justice, she dresses to perfect desperation; and," added Agnes, in her most amiable voice, for she always assumed the affectation of extreme candor in discussing other young ladies, "I am told Charlotte is very good tempered; at least so Lady Towercliffe says."

"And pray, what does that signify to me!" exclaimed Sir Patrick, contemptuously. "If there is nothing better to be said for your friend, then, Agnes, for ever hold your tongue. Amiable qualities are quite at a discount in general society! What does it matter to a man dancing a quadrille with any girl, that she is miraculously amiable, if she be miraculously ugly too! She may be a perfect termagant at home, for anything I care, provided she bring plenty of small talk into the ball-room; and I would not give a single sous to know whether her milliner's bills be paid, provided only she is well dressed. I would not take such a looking girl as Lady Charlotte Malcolm for my fifth wife!"

"You have quite burned her in effigy, now," observed Marion, looking up from her work. "Suppose we start some person, for variety, whom everybody must admire and praise!"

"That should be yourself, then!" said Captain De Crespigny. "Who else could answer the description?"

"I remember visiting at old Vivian's last summer, where the girls were all terrifyingly plain; their faces, like the dairy-maid, and their figures like the churn," said Sir Patrick. "One day I could not resist asking their old governess, in confidence, what could be the reason why the fourth daughter invariably took precedence of all the others, when she whispered in a confidential tone, 'because she once had a proposal.'"

"If young ladies take precedence on such grounds," observed Captain De Crespigny, with a glance towards Agnes and Marion, "I know who ought soon to leave all others behind! My cousins here have the game in their own hands; four by honors and the odd trick."

"Young ladies had much better gain precedence by accepting offers than by refusing them!" said Sir Patrick, whistling himself off to the window. "She's daft to refuse the laird o' Cock-pen!"

"I once saw a man who had been refused!" said Captain De Crespigny. "He should have kicked himself out of the world after such an adventure! From that day to this I have lived in a nervous horror of being rejected! I am the most marrying man in the world, but I never can venture to make an offer. I do wonder how people set about it! The author who published a complete letter-writer, should give us a complete manual of proposals for all occasions! I am so horribly diffident! Even coming into a room you have no idea how much I suffer from shyness!"

"It is astonishing, then, what a good face you manage to put upon it," said Marion, dryly. "I never guessed you were at all shy!"

"No! nor that I am a lover out of place, in want of a situation! Would it be a good plan, Miss Marion Dunbar, to advertise? You, being pen in hand already, shall write the advertisement. Describe me as made of every creature's best! How would it do to make a raffle of me? Twenty thousand tickets at one guinea each. How many will you take?"

"I have no money to waste," replied Marion. "But perhaps some young ladies with more, if they could be quite sure of a blank, might venture on one ticket, out of charity, hearing you are so anxious to go off."

"I do wonder if anybody would take me," continued Captain De Crespigny, in a tone of careless conceit. "I have the greatest mind to try Lady Charlotte Malcolm! Do you think, Miss Dunbar, I might have any chance?"

"Not the slightest!" replied Agnes, laughing. "I could bet my longest ringlet that she would reject you at once. Charlotte complained to me long ago how forward gentlemen are—always proposing, on the slightest encouragement."

"Remarkably true! I am positive that nine out of ten were refused last winter. We are a most unfortunate set of old fellows, Dunbar. Nobody appreciates us. I had made myself a promise to go off this season! positively my last appearance. But," added Captain De Crespigny, dropping his voice into a low tone of apparent feeling, "the more I am desirous to recommend myself, the less I succeed. If it were possible for either of you ladies ever to see me indifferent about pleasing, then you would be astonished at my success. Did Dunbar never mention, that in the company of those I do not care for, I am quite another man?"

"No!" replied Agnes, blushing and smiling. "Patrick is aware that we always judge of people's merits for ourselves."

"What would I not give to hear that verdict pronounced! If you have tried me by a court-martial, you may at least let me know the sentence!"

"It would do you good, De Crespigny, to hear those girls discussing your demerits! Your vanity requires lowering a peg or two!" said Sir Patrick, with a mischievous laugh. "You owe me countless thanks for putting in a word of defence now and then to protect you, for positively they are too bad. On the score of conceit and extravagance, I undertake to be your champion. Such faults are like the spots upon ermine, rather ornamental than otherwise; but if any one says you dress ill, I have not a syllable to say. Let me advise you, as a friend, to discard that tailor. He is atrocious. It would be the utmost stretch of my friendship to be seen with you anywhere to-day, except in some rural parts of the country; so now for our walk."

"Dress as you may, Dunbar, you will never look like me!" replied Captain De Crespigny, as they lounged off together. "It was a problem of Euclid, which we settled at Eton long ago, and may demonstrate now, that A B C can never be equal to D E F. Good morning, ladies! au revoir! we must fly. In your society I resemble the gentleman we used to read of in our school books, whose wings were melted because he ventured too near the sun."

The more Marion saw of Captain De Crespigny, the more astonished she became at the multiplicity of his talents for conversation, and at his universal craving to be admired, while all the petits soins which he lavished on herself, she, as a matter of course, set down to his extraordinary vanity, which could not allow the most insignificant of mortals to escape his fascinations; but to have supposed his attentions to be indications of love, she would have considered as absurd a blunder as to mistake an oyster-shell for an oyster.

Captain De Crespigny sketched caricatures with inimitable humor, sung with taste, and with every appearance of feeling, and his versatility of powers in talking were almost incredible. He discussed science occasionally with any blue-stocking, like a philosopher—looked dismal upon politics with members of Parliament—talked agriculture and fat cattle with country gentlemen—could describe the state of New Zealand, as if he had visited the country, to old ladies, with large families of enterprising sons. He was musical with the musical, sentimental with the sentimental, and apparently at home equally in poetry or metaphysics. With a smile for one, a sigh for another, and a jest for a third, his small-talk for young ladies might be minced into the smallest grains of sense or nonsense; while at the same time he could even get up a very plausible religious conversation, on the most approved model, when in company with any one like Marion, to whom he thought it might render him more acceptable. The true secret of Captain De Crespigny's almost universal popularity, lay in his appearing so flatteringly interested by whatever occupied the attention of others; and whether it were the last snowstorm, or a newly discovered star in the firmament—an old pedigree or a new bonnet, he seemed equally ready to follow the lead of any young lady, being sufficiently delighted in his own private mind, to imagine how every word he said, and every look he looked, would be afterwards treasured and remembered by those whom he had no particular intention of remembering himself.

Marion observed narrowly and anxiously Captain De Crespigny's conduct to Agnes; but even her discernment, quickened by the most affectionate solicitude, could bring her to no conclusive decision respecting his intentions, though she could not but feel sanguine at one time, and justly indignant at another, according as the thermometer of her hopes and fears rose or fell; yet she strongly suspected that Captain De Crespigny was but indulging his own ambition—that he wished to be thought of and talked about—to become devotedly loved—to be necessary to the happiness of another—to constitute that happiness for a short time, and then to destroy it as a useless toy, which had amused him for an hour, and might be broken without remorse. "How different! oh! how very different from Richard Granville!" thought Marion, with a glowing smile. "To him the peace of no living mortal is insignificant; and when loved or trusted, who ever was so considerate, so totally unselfish, so free from vanity and caprice! No Christian can doubt that happiness and principle are one."

The name of any individual more than commonly interesting is apt to occur often in conversation, a propos to everything or nothing; and Captain De Crespigny's penetration very soon discovered, that the Granvilles were never heard of or mentioned by Marion with indifference; therefore being anxious to fathom her secret, and to ascertain the extent of her intimacy with them, he tried the experiment one day, by professing an enthusiastic admiration for the extraordinary eloquence of "Dick Granville!" in whom he appeared suddenly to have discovered a thousand new and unheard-of good qualities, while with humorous pertinacity he defended him from all the satirical cuts with which Sir Patrick tried to lower his importance in the eyes of Marion; but Captain De Crespigny, unconscious of the lead which he was expected to follow, rattled on in his accustomed way,

"Granville always was one whom nothing could spoil! So different from young Meredith, who used one short month since to go about with a quiet country-curate look, but since he has become rather popular in the pulpit, he enters a room with his chin in the air, and all the self-confidence of a great lion. Weak heads are easily intoxicated."

"And people here do all in their power to ruin those they most admire, by very overdone adulation," added Agnes. "It would be a very strong fortress of humility that could withstand all the absurd mobbing which Mr. Granville has to undergo."

"As Lady Towercliffe said to me yesterday, in her usual slip-slop style of talking, 'Mr. Granville is so very eloquent, so benevolent, so learned, so pious, and has such a neat foot!'" continued Captain De Crespigny, laughing. "Really, Dunbar! if you and I quarrel with everybody better than ourselves, we shall find no one left to associate with! I have but one weak side on earth, Miss Marion Dunbar, and it is that of always standing up for the absent."

"They very often require it; and whether in jest or earnest, I am glad you do," replied Marion, finding herself obliged to speak, while her look of agitated consciousness, occasioned a thrill of jealousy in the heart of Captain De Crespigny, which brought a sudden flush into his countenance; but he assumed a careless tone, to conceal his real feelings, and turned to Sir Patrick, saying, "a propos of absence, the Granvilles are never here now! I remember the time when that pretty sister and my cousins were like the three graces, perfectly inseparable!"

At these words, Sir Patrick colored to the very temples; and instantly afterwards becoming pale as marble, he stooped to pat his dog, and then impatiently whistled Dash, along with himself, out of the room first, and finally out of the house; while Marion's eye was turned towards Agnes, with a deep and searching look of enquiry and astonishment.