“Oh, poor me! Now, I do declare—Isnʼt it most heartbreaking? I am such a foolish thing. Oh, can you be so cruel?”
Thrilling eyes of the richest grey trembled with dewy radiance, as Rufus coolly marched off the queen, and planted his knight instead of her.
“Mrs. Corklemore, can I relent? You are far too good a player.” The loveliest eyes, the most snowy surge, in the “mare magnum” of ladies, would never have made that dry Rue Hutton, well content with his Rosa, give away so much as the right to capture a pawn in passing.
Now observe the contrariety, the want of pure reason, the confusion of principle—I am sorry and ashamed, but I canʼt express these things in English, for the language is rich in emotion, but a pauper in philosophy—the distress upon the premises of the cleverest womanʼs mind. She had purposely thrown her queen in his way; but she never forgave him for taking it.
A glance shot from those soft bright eyes, when Rufus could not see them, as if the gentle evening star, Venus herself, all tremulous, rushed, like a meteor, up the heavens, and came hissing down on a poor manʼs head.
She took good care to win the next game, for policy allowed it; and then, of course, it was too late to try the decisive contest.
“Early hours. Liberty Hall, Liberty Hall at Kettledrum! Gentlemen stay up, and smoke if they like. But early hours, sir, for the ladies. We value their complexions. They donʼt. That I know. Do you now, my dearest? No, of course you donʼt.” This was Mr. Kettledrum.
“Except for your sake, darling,” said Mrs. Kettledrum, curtseying, for the children were all gone to bed ever so long ago.
“Well,” said Georgie, coming forward, because she knew her figure would look well with three lamps upon it; such a figure of eight! “my opinion is never worth having, I know, because I feel so much; but I pronounce——” here she stood up like Portia, with a very low–necked dress on—“gentlemen, and ladies, I pronounce that one is quite as bad as the other.”
“Haw!” said Nowell Corklemore. And so they went to bed. And Rufus Hutton wondered whether they ever had family prayers.