“Why, Bertie, dear, what on earth do you mean?”
They are all deceivers, every one; bless you! that’s the way with them. They are tricksters at heart, and conceal their feelings with a sort of savage deceit, which only a Red Indian besides possesses. See how calmly and placidly Miss Dissembler smiles with elegant ease, whilst Madame Verjuice pierces her little writhing heart through and through with a malicious sarcasm that wounds her to the core. She looks as if she never felt it whilst she is bleeding to death inwardly. Look at the poor fainting wife and mother, who with a smile on her lips and death at heart, cheerfully gives her husband and starving children the last morsel of bread in the hovel, and says with a martyr-like dissimulation that she does not want it, she is not hungry. Bless you they are all deceivers, every one, from little miss in her teens, who flirts with her boy lovers, to old Joan of threescore, who still wheedles her venerable Darby!
“Why, Bertie, what on earth do you mean?” as innocently as you please.
The Reverend Herbert Pringle, B.A., had for the last two days been puzzling his small amount of brains how to broach the subject to his sister. He did not wish to vex her, or hurt her feelings; in fact, he did not know what to do, it was “such a delicate matter, you know, such a very delicate matter,” that he wished it were settled and done for, and off his hands. But still, all the same, he did not know how to begin.
“Well, humph!” clearing his throat portentously, “the fact is, Lizzie, you know all about it.”
“Really, Bertie,” said Lizzie, laughing—oh! such a faint little laugh, “you are very enigmatical to-day.”
“I’m not joking, Lizzie; it’s a serious business, a very serious business. What is all this going on between you and Tom Hartshorne?”
Poor Lizzie’s little defences of affected ignorance and nonchalance at once broke down, although she bravely struggled on to preserve her equanimity.
“I’m sure I’ve nothing to do with Mr Hartshorne. What do you mean, Herbert? Pray explain yourself.”
And the young lady drew herself up with a tremendous accession of dignity to the full height of her little figure.