'Jean,' he has said to me, at the end of other things, 'you
are a fool, dolt, no-good imbecile.
Dunster," his host replled calmly, "you surely cannot imagine that you
are among thieves!
I do assure you that I am not one of those young ladies (if such young ladies there
are) who
are so daring as to risk their happiness on the chance of being asked a second time.
They
are not expressive of affection, they
are difficult to pack into a parcel of any regular shape, they
are hard to crack, even in room doors, and they
are oily when cracked; yet I feel that they
are appropriate to Miss Shepherd.
There is Gorgias of Leontium, and Prodicus of Ceos, and Hippias of Elis, who go the round of the cities, and
are able to persuade the young men to leave their own citizens by whom they might be taught for nothing, and come to them whom they not only pay, but
are thankful if they may be allowed to pay them.
It is because we Russians
are too richly and multifariously gifted to be able at once to find the proper mode of expression.
Those
are as fixed as fate, and my voyage is only now delayed until the weather shall permit my embarkation.
Don Quixote cheered up a little and said, "Of a truth I am almost ready to say I should have been glad had it turned out just the other way, for it would have obliged me to cross over to Barbary, where by the might of my arm I should have restored to liberty, not only Don Gregorio, but all the Christian captives there
are in Barbary.
Dismissing the messenger who waits below, I return to the corridor in which my rooms
are situated, and softly open the door of my bed-chamber.
"Sure, brother," says she, "you
are worse than mad, when you know in what situation affairs
are, to I am sure I ask Mr Blifil's pardon, but he knows very well to whom to impute so disagreeable a reception.
"I am afraid," he said quietly, "that you
are in a nervous, hypersensitive state.
You
are the husband of my dear sister, and for years I know that you made her very happy.
