“You must excuse me,” said Flora, laughing—as Miss Wilhelmina’s head dimly loomed through clouds of smoke—“I have no wish to acquire such a taste.”
“You’re a little fool,” puffed forth Wilhelmina. “But I hope to make something out of you yet. Take a glass of wine.”
“I never drink anything but water, excepting at breakfast and tea.”
“Water! Fiddle-faddle. A tumbler of hot punch will do you no harm. I am going to mix some in the most scientific manner.”
“Only think what Lyndsay would say,” cried Flora, “if he should come in, and find me smoking a cigar, and drinking brandy punch? He would never forgive me—I could never forgive myself.”
“All stuff and nonsense; I am certain he would neither refuse one of these cigars, nor a tumbler of this excellent punch. Does he never smoke?”
“Oh, yes; a cigar, sometimes.”
“And takes a glass of toddy—or he’s no Scot.”
“Occasionally, with a friend.”
“A male friend, of course. He takes snuff, for I have seen him do it; and this, between ourselves, is a far dirtier habit than smoking. I hate snuff; it always reminds me of a lecture I once heard upon that subject in America. The lecturer was a methodist; and he spoke very vehemently against the use of tobacco in any shape; but snuff-taking seemed to rouse him up, and inflame his indignation to a pitch of enthusiasm. ‘If the Almighty,’ he said, ‘had intended a man’s nose for a dust-hole, he would have turned up the nostrils the other way.’ These were his very words; and to me they were so convincing, that I discarded from that moment all idea of becoming a snuff-taker.”