“Oh, she’s not so especially and particularly my friend that you need mind that.”
“Then you’ll promise not to be angry?”
“Oh no, I won’t be angry.”
“Well, then; she has two passions: they are for worsted and hymn-books. She has a moral objection to waltzing. Theoretically she disapproves of flirtations: she encourages correspondence between young ladies; always crosses her letters, and never finished one for the last ten years without expressing entire resignation to the will of God,—as if she couldn’t be resigned without so often saying so. She speaks to her confidential friends of young men as a very worthless, insignificant race of beings; she is, however, prepared to take the very first that may be unfortunate enough to come in her way; she has no ideas of her own, but is quick enough at borrowing those of other people; she considers herself a profound theologian; dotes on a converted papist, and looks on a Puseyite [46] as something one shade blacker than the devil. Now isn’t that sufficiently like for a portrait?”
“It’s the portrait of a set, I fear, rather than an individual. I don’t know that it’s particularly like Miss O’Joscelyn, except as to the worsted and hymn-books.”
“What, not as to the waltzing, resignation, and worthless young men? Come, are they not exactly her traits? Does she waltz?”
“No, she does not.”
“And haven’t you heard her express a moral objection to it?”
“Well, I believe I have.”
“Did you ever get a letter from her, or see a letter of hers?”