"Stifling, split me!" added his Excellency. "What do you say,
madam, to a rest in an arbour, and a drink of something cool?"
"Sir!" said the lady, drawing back.
"Oh, a drink--a drink by all means," exclaimed Mr. Billings, who was
troubled with a perpetual thirst. "Come, mo--, Mrs. Jones, I mean.
you're fond of a glass of cold punch, you know; and the rum here is
prime, I can tell you."
The lady in the mask consented with some difficulty to the proposal
of Mr. Billings, and was led by the two gentlemen into an arbour,
where she was seated between them; and some wax-candles being
lighted, punch was brought.
She drank one or two glasses very eagerly, and so did her two
companions; although it was evident to see, from the flushed looks
of both of them, that they had little need of any such stimulus.
The Count, in the midst of his champagne, it must be said, had been
amazingly stricken and scandalised by the appearance of such a youth
as Billings in a public place with a lady under his arm. He was,
the reader will therefore understand, in the moral stage of liquor;
and when he issued out, it was not merely with the intention of
examining Mr. Billings's female companion, but of administering to
him some sound correction for venturing, at his early period of
life, to form any such acquaintances.
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