“So I am, much.”
“No, no, no! I made a mistake. I mean too young to be loved.”
“Oh, I am not too young for that, not a bit.”
This point settled, she suggested that, if he could not amuse her, he had better do THE NEXT BEST THING, and that was, talk sense.
“I think I had better not talk at all,” said he, “for I am no match for such a nimble tongue. And then you are so remorseless. I’ll hold my tongue, and make a sketch of this magnificent oak.”
“Ay, do: draw it as it appeared on a late occasion: with two ladies flying out of it, and you rooted with dismay.”
“There is no need; that scene is engraved.”
“Where? in all the shops?”
“No; on all our memories.”
“Not on mine; not on mine. How terrified you were—ha, ha! and how terrified we should have been if you had not. Listen: once upon a time—don’t be alarmed: it was long after Noah—a frightened hare ran by a pond; the frogs splashed in the water, smit with awe. Then she said, ‘Ah ha! there are people in the world I frighten in my turn; I am the thunderbolt of war.’ Excuse my quoting La Fontaine: I am not in ‘Charles the Twelfth of Sweden’ yet. I am but a child.”