“Ah, what a blasphemous speech—I must mind what I read!” our young woman protested. “When I read Thackeray and George Eliot how can I help minding?”
“Oh well, Thackeray and George Eliot”—and her friend pleasantly bethought himself. “I’m afraid I haven’t read much of them.”
“Don’t you suppose they knew about society?” asked Bessie Alden.
“Oh I daresay they knew; they must have got up their subject. Good writers do, don’t they? But those fashionable novels are mostly awful rot, you know.”
His companion rested on him a moment her dark blue eyes; after which she looked down into the chasm where the water was tumbling about. “Do you mean Catherine Grace Gore, for instance?” she then more aspiringly asked.
But at this he broke down—he coloured, laughed, gave up. “I’m afraid I haven’t read that either. I’m afraid you’ll think I’m not very intellectual.”
“Reading Mrs. Gore is no proof of intellect. But I like reading everything about English life—even poor books. I’m so curious about it,” said Bessie Alden.
“Aren’t ladies curious about everything?” he asked with continued hilarity.
“I don’t think so. I don’t think we’re enough so—that we care about many things. So it’s all the more of a compliment,” she added, “that I should want to know so much about England.”
The logic here seemed a little close; but Lord Lambeth, advised of a compliment, found his natural modesty close at hand. “I’m sure you know a great deal more than I do.”