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You may admire Clorinda, but you surely would be more apt to love Sophronia; at least," added she, suddenly appearing to recollect herself, and blushing at having launched into such a discussion, "at least that is what papa observed when we read the poem together."
With that advantage, Sophronia flattered her and rallied her more successfully, and then the insinuating Alfred flattered her and rallied her, and promised that at any moment when she might require that service at his hands, he would take young Fledgeby out and trample on him.
'We were discussing then, said Mrs Lammle, 'if you MUST know, Alfred, whether Mr Fledgeby was in his usual flow of spirits. 'Why, that is the very point, Sophronia, that Georgiana and I were discussing as to herself! What did Fledgeby say? 'Oh, a likely thing, sir, that I am going to tell you everything, and be told nothing! What did Georgiana say?
A frowsy head suddenly appeared at the dining-room door, and a voice which accompanied it remarked: "Didn't they bring in any stove, ma'am?" Sophronia looked inquiringly at me, and I answered: "No!" looking very blank at the same time. "Then how am I to make a fire to cook with?" asked the girl. "In the range, of course," said Sophronia.
While we were at the breakfast-table our girl appeared, with red eyes and a hoarse voice, and remarked that now she must leave; she had learned to like us, and she loved the country, but she had an aged parent whose sole support she was, and could not afford to risk her life in such a house. "Let her go," said Sophronia. "If variety is the spice of life, why shouldn't the rule apply to servants?"
Dark-eyed Sophronia was a nice Girl: and one summer day, when Neptune drove His sea-car slowly, and the olive grove That skirts Ilissus, to thy shell, Harmonia, Rippled, he said 'I love thee' to Sophronia. Crocus and iris, when they heard him, wagged Their pretty heads in glee: the honey-bagged Bees became altars: and the forest dove Her plumage smoothed. Such is the charm of love.
"Besides," she continued, in a less exalted strain, "I shall have Laura Stanley and Stella Sykes with me most of the time." The agent drove us back to his office, spending not more than ten minutes on the road; yet the time sufficed Sophronia to give me in detail her idea of the combination of carpets, shades, furniture, pictures, etc., which would be in harmony with our coming domicile.
'Mention it! replied Mrs Lammle, as if she were full of awakened feeling at the suggestion of such an impossibility. 'Men-tion it! 'I don't mind telling you, Mrs Lammle Bella began again. 'My love, say Sophronia, or I must not say Bella. With a little short, petulant 'Oh! Bella complied. 'Oh!
You will preserve a happy life for others; I shall cast from me a wretched one." Sophronia clasped her sister's hands in both her own, and gazed with her pure eyes deep into Glyceria's troubled, sorrowful ones. "You were the woman who, on the night I was captured, offered me her horse to escape?" "Why do you speak of that?" "Do you remember my answer?"
You, too, are disappointed and cut a poor figure. 'An injured figure! 'You are now cool enough, Sophronia, to see that you can't be injured without my being equally injured; and that therefore the mere word is not to the purpose. When I look back, I wonder how I can have been such a fool as to take you to so great an extent upon trust. 'And when I look back the bride cries, interrupting.
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