"No matter if it were your twenty-ninth; we will anticipate no feelings by discussion and conversation; we will not talk about love".
"Indeed, indeed!" said she—all in hurry and heat—"you may think to check and hold me in, as much as you please; but I have talked about it, and heard about it too; and a great deal and lately, and disagreeably and detrimentally: and in a way you wouldn't approve".
And the vexed, triumphant, pretty, naughty being laughed. I could not discern what she meant, and I would not ask her: I was nonplussed. Seeing, however, the utmost innocence in her countenance—combined with some transient perverseness and petulance—I said at last,—
"Who talks to you disagreeably and detrimentally on such matters? Who that has near access to you would dare to do it?"
"Lucy", replied she more softly, "it is a person who makes me miserable sometimes; and I wish she would keep away—I don't want her".
"But who, Paulina, can it be? You puzzle me much".
"It is—it is my cousin Ginevra. Every time she has leave to visit Mrs. Cholmondeley she calls here, and whenever she finds me alone she begins to talk about her admirers. Love, indeed! You should hear all she has to say about love".
"Oh, I have heard it", said I, quite coolly; "and on the whole, perhaps, it is as well you should have heard it too: it is not to be regretted, it is all right. Yet surely, Ginevra's mind cannot influence yours. You can look over both her head and her heart".
"She does influence me very much. She has the art of disturbing my happiness and unsettling my opinions. She hurts me through the feelings and people dearest to me".
"What does she say, Paulina? Give me some idea. There may be counteraction of the damage done".
"The people I have longest and most esteemed are degraded by her. She does not spare Mrs. Bretton—she does not spare.... Graham".
"No, I daresay: and how does she mix up these with her sentiment and her....love? She does mix them, I suppose?"
