M. And so I have. But then it was in the mind I was in. Things may offer——
I stared.
M. Nay, don't be surprised!—I don't intend—I don't intend—
D. Not, perhaps, in the mind you are in, Madam.
M. Pert creature! [rising again]——We shall quarrel, I see!—There's no——
D. Once more, dear Madam, I beg your excuse. I will attend in silence. —Pray, Madam, sit down again—pray do [she sat down.]—May I see the letter?
No; there are some things in it you won't like.—Your temper is known, I find, to be unhappy. But nothing bad against you; intimations, on the contrary, that you shall be the better for him, if you oblige him.
Not a living soul but the Harlowes, I said, thought me ill-tempered: and I was contented that they should, who could do as they had done by the most universally acknowledged sweetness in the world.
Here we broke out a little; but at last she read me some of the passages in the letter. But not the most mightily ridiculous: yet I could hardly keep my countenance neither, especially when she came to that passage which mentions his sound health; and at which she stopped; she best knew why—But soon resuming:
M. Well now, Nancy, tell me what you think of it.