“Oh, how you wrong her! Why, she is a poetess.”
“A what?” said Lady Lushington.
“She writes poems.”
“Nonsense! I don’t believe you.”
“I can show them to you.”
“Pray do not; I would not read them for the world. I class all rhymes as jingles. I detest them. Even Will Shakespeare could never gain my attention for more than half-a-minute.”
“Nevertheless, Mabel is clever, and her prize essay on ‘Idealism’ was undoubtedly the best in the school.”
“Yes? Wonders will never cease,” remarked Lady Lushington; “but, to tell you the truth, I was more annoyed than pleased when she got the prize. I did not want her to leave school for a year, and I only made that rash promise believing it to be quite impossible for me to fulfil. However, now I must make the best of it; and as, thank goodness! she does not pose as a genius, and is a fine, handsome girl, I have no doubt I shall get her married before long.”
“Oh, Lady Lushington! Could you bear to part with her?”
“Indeed I could, my dear, to a good husband. I mean by that a man in a high position in society.”