'Yes, it goes very prettily with those buttons. They are _very_ pretty
buttons; are not they, Milly? A present, a souvenir, I dare say?'
This was a terrible hit at the button-maker, and I thought he looked a
little oddly at me, but my countenance was so 'bewitchingly simple' that I
suppose his suspicions were allayed.
Now, it was very odd of me, I must confess, to talk in this way, and to
receive all those tender allusions from a gentleman about whom I had spoken
and felt so sharply only the evening before. But Bartram was abominably
lonely. A civilised person was a valuable waif or stray in that region of
the picturesque and the brutal; and to my lady reader especially, because
she will probably be hardest upon me, I put it--can you not recollect any
such folly in your own past life? Can you not in as many minutes call to
mind at least six similar inconsistencies of your own practising? For my
part, I really can't see the advantage of being the weaker sex if we are
always to be as strong as our masculine neighbours.
There was, indeed, no revival of the little sentiment which I had once
experienced.
Pages:
515
516
517
518
519
520
521
522
523
524
525
526
527
528
529
530
531
532
533
534
535
536
537
538
539