‘Oh!’ repressing a certain inclination to laugh at the bathos from the look of horror and shame in the girl’s eyes.
‘It is from that miserable Alexis! Oh, I know I brought it on myself, and I have been so wretched and so ashamed all day.’
‘Was it so very shocking! Let me see—’
‘Oh! I sent it back at once by the post, in an envelope, saying, “Sent by mistake.”’
‘But what was it like? Surely it was not one of the common shop things?’
‘Oh no; there was rather a pretty outline of a nymph or muse, or something of that sort, at the top—drawn, I mean—and verses written below, something about my showing a lodestar of hope, but I barely glanced at it. I hated it too much.’
‘I am sorry you were in such a hurry,’ said Aunt Jane. ‘No doubt it was a shock; but I am afraid you have given more pain than it quite deserved.’
‘It was so impertinent!’ cried Gillian, in astonished, shame-stricken indignation.
‘So it seems to you,’ said her aunt, ‘and it was very bad taste; but you should remember that this poor lad has grown up in a stratum of society where he may have come to regard this as a suitable opportunity of evincing his gratitude, and perhaps it may be very hard upon him to have this work of his treated as an insult.’
‘But you would not have had me keep it and tolerate it?’ exclaimed Gillian.