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Untitled Article
c Exuberance of spirits i » n # fault <* C tfc ? ir # & * & ** observed Miss Allen ; c I fear that your girls wj } JL haye no share of your gaiety . ' c they ! they take after their father ' s family , just like tys sisters , ( you do not know them , ) plain , sombre , awkward women , very good though , superlatively good ! I often wish that I was like them . '
A smile of self-satisfaction played about her mouth , and contradicted the assertion , as she continued ; c I have the least possible of the English woman about me ; when I was at Paris , I was much in the same predicament in which Dumas was , when in Switzerland . He was everywhere taken for an Englishman who spoke French very well ; / was taken for a French woman who spoke ( English very well . '
Of all your children , ' resumed Miss Allen , Montague is most like yourself . ' ' Do you think so ? ' vividly exclaimed Mrs . Vernon , gratified by the observation . Montague was her eldest son , and it would be worth while to inquire , how far the law of primogeniture eontributes to the preference extended to eldest sons , even by their mothers .
' Montague , ' she continued , is the delight and hope of my heart . So elegant , so handsome ! I glory in our late accession of fortune for his sake . He leaves college very soon ; and I am glad of it ; for I fear he is a sad rebel there . He has be $ n drawing bills to an amount I dare not mention , especially to his father .
Oh , my dear , what woman shall I deem sufficiently worthy for this dear boy of mine ? What a match he will be 1 A fortune , thanks to the prudence of his father , so unincumbered ! a person so faultless ! an address so perfect ! He will repay me for all the mortifications which , I fear , I am doomed to meet about his
sisters . I must marry them as I can , I may marry him as I like ; nothing less than nobility will I allow him to think off . ' The carriage was announced , and the ladies departed to perform the duties of their pasteboard friendships , which consisted in
leaving gilt-edged cards at a variety of houses , from the ponderous knockers of which , the muscular arm of a pamperea footman elicited sounds calculated to shatter the nerves of anything but a fine lady , whose natural sensibility has long been surrendered to some kind of conventional substitute .
The governess to whom Miss Allen had alluded , was ill adapted to the situation into which chance had thrown her ; she was a rational , as well as an accomplished woman ; with no fine $ sey but much reflection , great sincerity , but little sentiment , and had an air of ease and simplicity , which were thought very unsuitable to her peculiar position , in which deference , and a sort of elaborate refinement are rather looked for . She found her pupils in the most hopeless condition , at least to her apprehension . Already all the spontaneity of youthful feeling
Untitled Article
Sketches of Domestic Life . 807
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), May 2, 1835, page 307, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2645/page/15/
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