I never was perhaps exactly pretty, but I was always admitted to be
fascinating. Dr. Skinner is a very handsome man- too good on the whole
I should say for Mrs. Skinner. Theobald says he is not handsome, but
men are no judges, and he has such a pleasant, bright face. I think my
bonnet became me. As soon as I get home I will tell Chambers to trim
my blue and yellow merino with-" etc., etc.
All this time the letter which has been given above was lying in
Christina's private little Japanese cabinet, read and re-read and
approved of many times over, not to say, if the truth were known,
rewritten more than once, though dated as in the first instance- and
this, too, though Christina was fond enough of a joke in a small way.
Ernest, still in Mrs. Jay's room, mused onward. "Grown-up people,"
he said to himself, "when they were ladies and gentlemen, never did
naughty things, but he was always doing them. He had heard that some
grown-up people were worldly, which of course was wrong, still this
was quite distinct from being naughty, and did not get them punished
or scolded. His own papa and mamma were not even worldly; they had
often explained to him that they were exceptionally unworldly; he well
knew that they had never done anything naughty since they had been
children, and that even as children they had been nearly faultless.
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