"
"Billiards!"
"Billiards. I adore them. You know nothing of billiards; women never
do. They are my joy. Pardon me," (with a sudden uprising of the moral
sense,) "I have an engagement at the billiard-room, and I should be
there."
"Dear me! I should like to do billiards."
"Heaven forbid!"
"Why so, Sir?"
"No, I do not mean that; but ladies never play billiards."
"I suppose there is no reason why they should not?"
"A thousand."
"Why, what harm?"
"My dear Miss Tarlingford, if your first name were not Arabella,--alas,
alas!--there would be none."
"Nonsense! now you are laughing at me. Come, you shall teach me
billiards."
"It cannot be, Miss Tarlingford." (Low tragedy tones.)
"Why not?"
"Because your name is Arabella."
"Very well, Sir,--if you do not like my name, you need not repeat it."
"I adore it; it is not that. Forgive me."
"Then I will get my hat";--and her light footsteps tapped upon the
stairs.
Here was a state of things! Where were my firmness and my resolution
now? Where was the Pythian probity for which, according to my
expectations, Lillivan was to have poured Damoniac gratitude upon me?
Was I, or was I not, rapidly degenerating into villany? I felt that I
was, and blushed for my family.
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