“Indeed, miss, you make vastly free with your aunt’s name.”
“And therefore,” Miss Hamlin went on without heeding me, “she throws the burden on the young women themselves, and thinks she has done all her duty when she has placed it on their consciences. Pray, miss, was you born with a heart?”
“Sure I don’t understand you, miss,” said I, staggered, as they say, by so sudden and particular[11] a question.
“Because I was not,” said this strange girl; “or if I were, it has been bred out of me—without it be like the coquette’s heart at the dissection of which your dear ‘Spectator’ says he attended. But you, miss, if I don’t mistake, are burdened with this useless and improper possession. Pray understand that by the time you reach Bengall it must be gone, and replaced either by a purse of gold or a chest of toys and laces, or else the determination to outshine your neighbours, if you are ever to cut a figure in Calcutta. The voyage is your opportunity of practising for its removal.”
“Indeed, miss——” said I, bewildered, but she interrupted me.
“I have pointed out to you your work for the next eight or nine months, miss, and I shall hope to see you fashionably heartless when we land in India. But for the present, which of the two gentlemen that have been designated as our bond-slaves for the voyage will you attach to your service?”
“Oh, pray, miss, oblige me by choosing first,” said I.
“Then I choose Mr Ranger,” said she, quickly.
“I’m quite content to take Mr Fraser,” said I, well pleased.
“That’s as I should have guessed. I have chose Mr Ranger because he is the more entertaining to me, but if I were acting the part of a true friend by you, miss, I should have taken the Lieutenant.”