“Do you know, Polly,” said Josephine, archly, “I have a sort of suspicion that you don't dislike this Major yourself! Am I right?”
“I'm not say you were altogether wrong; that is, he interests me, or, rather, he puzzles me, and it piques my ingenuity to read him, just as it would to make out a cipher to which I had only one-half the key.”
“Such a feeling as that would never inspire a tender interest, at least, with me.”
“Nor did I say it was, Fifine. I have read in some book of my father's how certain physicians inoculated themselves with plague, the better to note the phenomena, and trace the course; and I own I can understand their zeal, and I 'd risk something to decipher this man.”
“This may be very nice in medicine, Polly, but very bad in morals! At all events, don't catch the plague for the sake of saving me?”
“Oh! I assure you any step I take shall be done in the interests of science solely; not but that I have a small debt to acquit towards the gallant Major.”
“You have! What can it possibly be?”
“Well, it was this wise,” said she, with a half-sigh. “We met at a country-house here, and he paid me certain attentions, made me compliments on my riding, which I knew to be good, and my singing, which was just tolerable; said the usual things which mean nothing, and a few of those more serious ones which are supposed to be more significant; and then he asked my father's leave to come and visit him, and actually fixed a day and an hour. And we, poor people, all delighted with the flattery of such high notice, and thinking of the effect upon our neighbors so splendid a visitor would produce, made the most magnificent preparations to receive him,—papa in a black satin waistcoat, mamma in her lilac ribbons. I myself,—having put the roof on a pigeon-pie, and given the last finishing touch to a pagoda of ruby jelly,—I, in a charming figured muslin and a blush rose in my hair, awaited the hour of attack! And, after all, he never came. No, Fifine, never came! He forgot us, or he changed his mind, or something else turned up that he liked better; or—which is just as likely as any of the three—he thought it would be a charming piece of impertinence to pass off on such small folk, who presumed to fancy themselves company for him. At all events, Fifine, we saw him no more. He went his way somewhere, and we were left lamenting.”
“And you really liked him, Polly?”
“No, of the two, I disliked him; but I wished very much that he might like me! I saw him very overbearing and very insolent to those who were certainly his equals, assuming a most offensive superiority everywhere and to any one, and I thought what an awful humiliation it would be if so great a personage were to be snubbed by the doctor's daughter. I wanted to give a lesson which could only be severe if it came from one humble as myself; but he defeated me, Fifine, and I am still his debtor! If I did not like him before, you may believe that I hate him now; and I came off here this morning, in hot haste, for no other purpose than to set you against him, and induce you to regard him as I do.”