"
"He doesn't know you so well," cried Amelia.
"I defy anybody not to be good to you, my dear," said her mother.
"The curry was capital; indeed it was," said Joe, quite gravely.
"Perhaps there was NOT enough citron juice in it--no, there was
NOT."
"And the chilis?"
"By Jove, how they made you cry out!" said Joe, caught by the
ridicule of the circumstance, and exploding in a fit of laughter
which ended quite suddenly, as usual.
"I shall take care how I let YOU choose for me another time," said
Rebecca, as they went down again to dinner. "I didn't think men
were fond of putting poor harmless girls to pain."
"By Gad, Miss Rebecca, I wouldn't hurt you for the world."
"No," said she, "I KNOW you wouldn't"; and then she gave him ever so
gentle a pressure with her little hand, and drew it back quite
frightened, and looked first for one instant in his face, and then
down at the carpet-rods; and I am not prepared to say that Joe's
heart did not thump at this little involuntary, timid, gentle motion
of regard on the part of the simple girl.
It was an advance, and as such, perhaps, some ladies of indisputable
correctness and gentility will condemn the action as immodest; but,
you see, poor dear Rebecca had all this work to do for herself. If
a person is too poor to keep a servant, though ever so elegant, he
must sweep his own rooms: if a dear girl has no dear Mamma to settle
matters with the young man, she must do it for herself.
Pages:
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54