'
I saw that Captain Oakley lingered for a last look, but I did not give it,
and went out smiling with Cousin Knollys, and wondering why old ladies are
so uniformly disagreeable.
In the lobby she said, with an odd, goodnatured look--
'Don't allow any of his love-making, my dear. Charles Oakley has not a
guinea, and an heiress would be very convenient. Of course he has his eyes
about him. Charles is not by any means foolish; and I should not be at all
sorry to see him well married, for I don't think he will do much good
any other way; but there are degrees, and his ideas are sometimes very
impertinent.'
I was an admiring reader of the _Albums_, the _Souvenirs_, the _Keepsakes_,
and all that flood of Christmas-present lore which yearly irrigated
England, with pretty covers and engravings; and floods of elegant
twaddle--the milk, not destitute of water, on which the babes of literature
were then fed. On this, my genius throve. I had a little album, enriched
with many gems of original thought and observation, which I jotted down in
suitable language. Lately, turning over these faded leaves of rhyme
and prose, I lighted, under this day's date, upon the following sage
reflection, with my name appended:--
'Is there not in the female heart an ineradicable jealousy, which, if it
sways the passions of the young, rules also the _advice_ of the _aged_? Do
they not grudge to youth the sentiments (though Heaven knows how _shadowed_
with sorrow) which they can _no longer inspire_, perhaps even _experience_;
and does not youth, in turn, sigh over the envy which has _power to
blight_?
MAUD AYLMER RUTHYN.
Pages:
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122