You shall
have an invitation in the morning."
"Such delights are not for me," Carne answered, with a superior smile;
"unhappily my time is too important. But perhaps these festivities will
favour me with the chance of a few words with my darling. How I long to
see her, and how little chance I get!"
"Because, when you get it, you spend three-quarters of the time in
arguing, and the rest in finding fault. I am sure I go as far as anybody
can; and I won't take you into my father's Roundhouse, because I don't
think it would be proper."
"Ladies alone understand such subjects; and a gentleman is thankful
that they do. I am quite content to be outside the Roundhouse--so called
because it is square, perhaps--though the wind is gone back to the east
again, as it always does now in an English summer, according to a man
who has studied the subject--Zebedee Tugwell, the captain of the fleet.
Dolly, beloved, and most worthy to be more so, clear your bright mind
from all false impressions, whose only merit is that they are yours, and
allow it to look clearly at a matter of plain sense."
She was pleased to have compliments paid to her mind, even more than to
her body--because there was no doubt about the merits of the latter--and
she said: "That is very nice. Go on."
"Well, beauty, you know that I trust you in everything, because of your
very keen discretion, and freedom from stupid little prejudice. I have
been surprised at times, when I thought of it in your absence, that
any one so young, who has never been through any course of political
economy, should be able to take such a clear view of subjects which are
far beyond the intellect of even the oldest ladies.
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