"That's my business; you leave that to me, sir. Hold out your hand—both hands; here is the ancestral bracelet—it shall pinch me no longer, neither my wrist nor my heart; here's the brooch you gave me—I won't be pinned to it any longer, nor to you neither; and there is your bunch of charms; and there is your bundle of love-letters—stupid ones they are;" and she crammed all the aforesaid treasures into his hands one after the other. So this was what she went to her room for.
Percy looked down on his handful ruefully. "My very letters! There was no jealousy in them; they were full of earnest love."
"Fuller of bad spelling," said the relentless girl. Then she went into details: "You spell abominable with two m's—and that's abominable; you spell ridiculous with a k—and that's ridicklous. So after this don't you presume to speak to me, for I shall never speak to you again."
"Very well, then," said Percy. "I, too, will be silent forever."
"Oh, I dare say," said Julia; "a chatter-box like you."
"Even chatter-boxes are silent in the grave," suggested Percy; "and if we are to part like this forever to-day, to-morrow I shall be no more."
"Well, you could not be much less," said Julia, but with a certain shame-faced change of tone that perhaps, if Percy had been more experienced, might have given him a ray of hope.
"Well," said he, "I know one lady that would not treat these presents with quite so much contempt."
"Oh, I have seen her," said Julia, spitefully. "She has been setting her cap at you for some time; it's Miss Susan Beckley—a fine conquest—great, fat, red-haired thing."
"Auburn."