You'll find her, I believe, good-natured and affectionate; _au reste_, I
fear a very rustic Miranda, and fitted rather for the society of Caliban
than of a sick old Prospero. Is it not so, Millicent?'
The old man paused sarcastically for an answer, with his eyes fixed
severely on my odd cousin, who blushed and looked uneasily to me for a
hint.
'I don't know who they be--neither one nor t'other.'
'Very good, my dear,' he replied, with a little mocking bow. 'You see, my
dear Maud, what a Shakespearean you have got for a cousin. It's plain,
however, she has made acquaintance with some of our dramatists: she has
studied the role of _Miss Hoyden_ so perfectly.'
It was not a reasonable peculiarity of my uncle that he resented, with a
good deal of playful acrimony, my poor cousin's want of education, for
which, if he were not to blame, certainly neither was she.
'You see her, poor thing, a result of all the combined disadvantages of
want of refined education, refined companionship, and, I fear, naturally,
of refined tastes; but a sojourn at a good French conventual school will
do wonders, and I hope to manage by-and-by.
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