“Here comes the donkey-chair. I thank you very much for your great kindness.”
“Mine? oh, don’t name it. It has been all on the other side! What is the line of poetry about ‘An angel unawares——’”
“In the Bible,” suggested I, provoked at being tempted to smile.
“Oh yes! (what a shame!) ‘thereby entertained,’ and so on. Which is just what I’ve done, you know. Oh, I’m so sorry you’ll go. Do look in again some day. I have very few friends; for some people look down on me, and I look down on some other people. And so I get no society at all. Baby wants you to kiss him. ‘Ta, ta, Mrs. Cheerlove.’ Pretty fellow!” (kissing him rapturously). “Mind you don’t get the hem of your dress draggled as you go down the steps. There now, the scraper has torn your braid! Mind your foot does not catch in it, and throw you on your face. I’ll have that scraper mended against you come next. Mr. Ringwood has spoken of it several times. You’ve done me so much good, you can’t think! more than a glass of wine!”
Poor little woman! I’m afraid her head is rather empty. But if her intellect has not been much cultivated, she has genuine affections—with a good deal of étourderie, wilfulness, and self-appreciation. How they will get on together I cannot conjecture. A chance word of mine made a transient impression; but “the next cloud that veils the skies” will sweep it all away.
We must not, on that account, however, relax our humble endeavours, nor despise the day of small things. Line upon line, precept on precept, here a little and there a little, effect something at last. Grains of sand buried the Sphinx.
Directly I saw Phillis, I perceived a very queer expression on her face. “Ah,” thought I, “she remembers what she said about the weather, and is rather ashamed of my having been caught in the rain. I shall charge her with it, and hear what excuses she can make. She is a capital hand at self-defence.”
But, at that moment, my ears were struck by a loud, harsh, jarring sound, that absolutely petrified me—the piercing scream of a cockatoo!