"Has a silver ball in lieu of a tassel. Now go and prosper."
Thus indicated, he soon selected the fan and drew it forth, to the annoyance of Douglas, who beheld him present it to the fair owner; and her hazel eye sparkled with joy as Charters kissed her hand with a matchless air of ardour and respect. Honest Charters felt quite tipsy with joy. Emmy had now shown that he was _not_ without interest to her; and was not this a charming admission from a young beauty, who could command any number of wedding-rings at any hour she pleased? Thus, according to the witty Sir Alexander Boswell, who (for one of his squibs) was shot one morning by Stuart of Dunearn,
"Each lady's fan a chosen Damon bore, With care selected many a day before."
With the dancing of a whole season before them, the reader may easily imagine the result. All the tabbies, gossips, and coteries of the fair city had long since assigned them to each other; and though the mere magic of linking two names constantly together has done much to cajole boys and girls into a love for each other, no such magic was required here, for Emmy, I have said, was four-and-twenty, and Louis was three years her senior.
Finding himself completely outwitted, and that the fan of a demoiselle of somewhat mature age and rather unattractive appearance had fallen to his lot, Willy Douglas "evacuated Flanders," _i.e._, forsook the ballroom, and bent all his energies to recruiting for the second battalion of the Black Watch, leaving the fair field completely to his more successful rival.
But though assigned to Charters by the fashion of the time, and by her own pretty manoeuvre, as a partner for the season, our gay coquette would not yet acknowledge herself conquered; and Charters felt with some anxiety that she was amusing herself with him, and that the time was drawing near when he would have to rejoin his regiment, which was then expecting the route for America, over the fortunes of which the clouds of war were gathering. Besides, Emmy had a thousand little whims and teasing ways about her, all of which it was his daily pleasure, and sometimes his task, to gratify and to soothe; and often they had a quarrel--a real quarrel--for two whole days. These were two centuries to Louis; but then it was of course made up again; and Emmy, like an Empress, gave him her dimpled hand to kiss, reminding him, with a coy smile, that