and, while wounding, she would not soon have alienated me; through myself, she could not in ten years have done what, in a moment, she has done through my mother".
He held his peace awhile. Never before had I seen so much fire, and so little sunshine in Dr. John's blue eye, as just now.
"Lucy", he recommenced, "look well at my mother and say, without fear or favor, in what light she now appears to you".
"As she always does—an English, middle-class gentlewoman; well, though gravely dressed, habitually independent of pretense, constitutionally composed and cheerful".
"So she seems to me—bless her! The merry may laugh with mamma, but the weak only will laugh at her; she shall not be ridiculed with my consent at least, nor without my—my scorn—my antipathy—my"
He stopped, and it was time—for he was getting excited—more it seemed than the occasion warranted. I did not then know that he had witnessed double cause for dissatisfaction with Miss Fanshawe; the glow of his complexion, the expansion of his nostril, the bold curve which disdain gave his well-cut under lip, showed him in a new and striking phase. Yet the rare passion of the constitutionally suave and serene, is not a pleasant spectacle; nor did I like the sort of vindictive thrill which passed through his strong young frame.
"Do I frighten you, Lucy?" he asked.
"I cannot tell why you are so very angry".
"For this reason", he muttered in my ear. "Ginevra is neither a pure angel nor a pure-minded woman".
"Nonsense! you exaggerate: she has no great harm in her".
"Too much for me; I can see where you are blind. Now, dismiss the subject. Let me amuse myself by teasing mamma; I will assert that she is flagging. Mamma, pray rouse yourself".
"John, I will certainly rouse you, if you are not better conducted. Will you and Lucy be silent, that I may hear the singing?"
They were then thundering in a chorus, under cover of which all the previous dialog had taken place.
"You hear the singing, mamma! Now, I will wager my studs—which are genuine—against your paste brooch"
