As aunt was equally dying to tell it, she passed over the skit upon her age, though she did not forget nor forgive it; and repeated the whole conversation of Vizard and Severne with rare fidelity; but as I abhor what the evangelist calls “battology,” and Shakespeare “damnable iteration,” I must draw upon the intelligence of the reader (if any), and he must be pleased to imagine the whole dialogue of those two unguarded smokers repeated to Fanny, and interrupted, commented on at every salient point, scrutinized, sifted, dissected, and taken to pieces by two keen women, sharp by nature, and sharper now by collision of their heads. No candor, no tolerance, no allowance for human weakness, blunted the scalpel in their dexterous hands.
Oh, Gossip! delight of ordinary souls, and more delightful still when you furnish food for detraction!
To Fanny, in particular, it was exciting, ravishing, and the time flew by so unheeded that presently there came a sharp knock and an impatient voice cried, “Chatter! chatter! chatter! How long are we to be kept waiting for dinner, all of us?”
CHAPTER VI.
AT the very commencement of the confabulation, so barbarously interrupted before it had lasted two hours and a half, the Misogyn rang the bell, and asked for Rosa, Zoe's maid.
She came, and he ordered her to have up a basket of wood, and light a roaring fire in her mistress's room, and put out garments to air. He also inquired the number of Zoe's bedroom. The girl said it was “No. 74.”
The Misogyn waited half an hour, and then visited “No. 74.” He found the fire burned down to one log, and some things airing at the fire, as domestics air their employers' things, but not their own, you may be sure. There was a chemise carefully folded into the smallest possible compass, and doubled over a horse at a good distance from the cold fire. There were other garments and supplementaries, all treated in the same way.
The Misogyn looked, and remarked as follows, “Idiots! at everything but taking in the men.”
Having relieved his spleen with this courteous and comprehensive observation, he piled log upon log till the fire was half up the chimney. Then he got all the chairs and made a semi-circle, and spread out the various garments to the genial heat; and so close that, had a spark flown, they would have been warmed with a vengeance, and the superiority of the male intellect demonstrated. This done, he retired, with a guilty air; for he did not want to be caught meddling in such frivolities by Miss Dover or Miss Maitland. However, he was quite safe; those superior spirits were wholly occupied with the loftier things of the mind, especially the characters of their neighbors.