“Pardon me, I like some novels very much.”
“Which?” said Miss Hauton, rising and approaching the table.
“All that are just representations of life and manners, or of the human heart,” said Godfrey, “provided they are—”
“Ah! the human heart!” interrupted Miss Hauton: “the heart only can understand the heart—who, in modern times, can describe the human heart?”
“Not to speak of foreigners—Miss Burney—Mrs. Inchbald—Mrs. Opie,” said Godfrey.
“True; and yet I—and yet—” said Miss Hauton, pausing and sighing.
“And yet that was not what I was thinking of,” she should have said, had she finished her sentence with the truth; but this not being convenient, she left it unfinished, and began a new one, with “Some of these novels are sad trash—I hope Mr. Godfrey Percy will not judge of my taste by them: that would be condemning me for the crimes of my bookseller, who will send us down everything new that comes out.”
Godfrey disclaimed the idea of condemning or blaming Miss Hauton’s taste: “he could not,” he said, “be so presumptuous, so impertinent.”
“So then,” said she, “Mr. Godfrey Percy is like all the rest of his sex, and I must not expect to hear the truth from him.”—She paused—and looked at a print which he was examining.—“I would, however, rather have him speak severely than think hardly of me.”
“He has no right to speak, and certainly no inclination to think hardly of Miss Hauton,” replied Godfrey gravely, but with an emotion which he in vain endeavoured to suppress. To change the conversation, he asked her opinion about a figure in the print. She took out her glass, and stooped to look quite closely at it.—“Before you utterly condemn me,” continued she, speaking in a low voice, “consider how fashion silences one’s better taste and feelings, and how difficult it is when all around one—”