‘You are not referring to me, my love, I hope?’ Mr Sparkler humbly interrupted.
‘Edmund, Edmund, you would wear out a Saint. Am I not expressly speaking of my poor uncle?’
‘You looked with so much expression at myself, my dear girl,’ said Mr Sparkler, ‘that I felt a little uncomfortable. Thank you, my love.’
‘Now you have put me out,’ observed Fanny with a resigned toss of her fan, ‘and I had better go to bed.’
‘Don’t do that, my love,’ urged Mr Sparkler. ‘Take time.’
Fanny took a good deal of time: lying back with her eyes shut, and her eyebrows raised with a hopeless expression as if she had utterly given up all terrestrial affairs. At length, without the slightest notice, she opened her eyes again, and recommenced in a short, sharp manner:
‘What happens then, I ask! What happens? Why, I find myself at the very period when I might shine most in society, and should most like for very momentous reasons to shine in society—I find myself in a situation which to a certain extent disqualifies me for going into society. It’s too bad, really!’
‘My dear,’ said Mr Sparkler. ‘I don’t think it need keep you at home.’
‘Edmund, you ridiculous creature,’ returned Fanny, with great indignation; ‘do you suppose that a woman in the bloom of youth and not wholly devoid of personal attractions, can put herself, at such a time, in competition as to figure with a woman in every other way her inferior? If you do suppose such a thing, your folly is boundless.’
Mr Sparkler submitted that he had thought ‘it might be got over.’