Richardson would have called her passive hand, and
pressed it with wonderful tenderness.
Honest Mary suffered all this somewhat reluctantly, never smiling, and, on
the contrary, looking rather ruefully at her feet.
'Weel you make a some tea? When I come back, dear Mary Quince, I 'av so
much to tell you and dear Miss Maud of all my adventures while I 'av been
away; it will make a you laugh ever so much. I was--what you theenk?--near,
ever so near to be married!' And upon this she broke into a screeching
laugh, and shook Mary Quince merrily by the shoulder.
I sullenly declined going out, or rising; and when she had gone away, I
told Mary that I should confine myself to my room while Madame stayed.
But self-denying ordinances self-imposed are not always long observed by
youth. Madame de la Rougierre laid herself out to be agreeable; she had no
end of stories--more than half, no doubt, pure fictions--to tell, but all,
in that triste place, amusing. Mary Quince began to entertain a better
opinion of her. She actually helped to make beds, and tried to be in
every way of use, and seemed to have quite turned over a new leaf; and so
gradually she moved me, first to listen, and at last to talk.
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