“That was because you are such a fashionable lady, and the Dodds have no such pretensions.”
“All the better; my taste is not for sophisticated people. I only put up with them because I am obliged. Why, Lucy, you ought to know how my heart yearns for nature and truth; I am sure I have told you so often enough. An hour spent with a simple, natural creature like Captain Dodd refreshes me as a cooling breeze after the heat and odors of a crowded room.”
“Miss Dodd is very natural too—is she not?”
“Very. Pertness and vulgarity are natural enough—to some people.”
“My uncle likes her the best of the two.”
“Then your uncle is mad. But the fact is, men are no judges in such cases; they are always unjust to their own sex, and as blind to the faults of ours as beetles.”
“But surely, aunt, she is very arch and lively.”
“Pert and fussy, you mean.”
“Pretty, at all events? Rather?”
“What, with that snub nose!!?”