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Updated: June 24, 2025
Such a girl, were it not that she is checked by a sweet natural sense of feminine grace, you might call a romp; but not a hoyden, observe; no horse-play; oh, no, nothing of that sort. And these people fancy that earthquakes, volcanoes, and all such little escapades will be over, they will, in lawyer's phrase, 'cease and determine, as soon as our Earth reaches the age of maidenly bashfulness.
If the country girl is no longer the hoyden that swung on the gates and romped in the hay, neither has she the innocent thought of the olden days.
These Lurewells, Plyants, Pinchwifes, Fondlewifes, Miss Prue, Peggy, Hoyden, all of them save charming Milamant, are dead as last year's clothes in a fashionable fine lady's wardrobe, and it must be an exceptionably abandoned Abigail of our period that would look on them with the wish to appear in their likeness.
We said the autumn and the winter were gone; and it was in one of those latter days in March, when, like a hoyden girl subsiding into dawning womanhood, the rude weather mellows into a softer and tenderer month, that, by the side of a stream, overshadowed by many a brake and tree, sat two persons.
"You're a foolish boy, Kit," said his Aunt. "I don't believe that girl is any one we know, but is some mischievous hoyden who is leading you a dance. You won't see her to- night, if you ever do." "Then I shall think up the easiest death possible, and die it," declared Kit, cheerfully.
The laughing, romping hoyden was capable of sound sensible argument, her character was made up of opposites; and Helen Rushton, clever in many things, was almost baffled. Marguerite soon poured oil on the troubled waters. "You told me where you were going to stay Helen but I have forgotten," ventured the latter.
She cannot altogether be defended, and yet it may be averred that she is not a hoyden, not given to romping nor prone to boxing. It were to be wished devoutly that she had not struck Mr. Slope in the face. In doing so she derogated from her dignity and committed herself.
"It ain't nothing to do with me," answered the red-armed, coal-besmeared hoyden, looking up from her knees; "it's the missus. `He was put out with the coal bill last time, she says, `and I ain't going to risk lighting up his fire with coal at sixpence a scuttle, and me not knowing whether he's coming back to-night."
And how, my lord, would you, who are giving hundreds, more than hundreds, for this portrait of your dear one, like to see it in print from the art critic of the day, that she is a brazen-faced hoyden who seems to have had a glass of wine too much, or to have been making hay? And so also has the reading world taught itself to like best the characters of all but divine men and women.
She did not even glance toward Beverley, who moved as if to interfere and was promptly motioned back by the guard. His better judgement returning held him from a rash and futile act, until Hamilton spoke again, saying loudly as Alice passed through the door: "I'll see who's master of this town if I have to shoot every French hoyden in it!"
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