"Not a bad idea," said the Major, picking up a book at random. "Perhaps this will do as well."
And he commenced to read Burns's sonnet:
"'Oh, wad some power the Gifty gie us To see ourselves as ithers see us.'"
"That's just it," interrupted Maud. "Now I'll express your sentiments with which I entirely agree. 'She's a rollicking, jolly girl, full of dash and nonsense, doesn't care a fig for anybody; as for falling in love, that's impossible, for she hasn't a heart any bigger than a chipmunk.' How will that do for a commencement?"
"Only fairly well. Pray go on."
A spark of fire flashed from her eyes as she continued:
"'She's got the crazy idea that she lives in a glorious country, where the sun shines ten months in the year, and she'd rather die an old maid in it than go to another one for all the wealth of Ind.'"
"How eloquent you are!" he said, stroking his moustache over compressed lips and looking toward the ceiling. "Should my rendition come next?"
"That would be delightful!" she exclaimed, clapping her hands in well-assumed mirth. "You tell me what I think of you, which will be your own sentiment of yourself."
"Well," he said reflectively, "he's an arrant fool, filled with the old-fashioned notion that men were brave and women true—that love nestled in the heart of every woman, and that it only required the right man and the right place to make it blossom as the rose. He fondly imagined that old England was the Queen of the Seas, and that her homes were the freest, the fairest, the loveliest in the wide world, and he dreamed of wooing and winning a fair damsel with flashing eyes, generous impulses, daring heart, and making her the wife of his bosom, the goddess of his love, the mistress of his home in the mansion and groves of his forefathers. But he was a daft and silly wight, and didn't know what he was doing."