‘Only a pain!’
‘My dear Picotee—’
‘I think I’ll sit down for a moment, Berta.’
‘What—have you over-walked yourself, dear?’
‘Yes—and I got up very early, you see.’
‘I hope you are not going to be ill, child. You look as if you ought not to be here.’
‘O, it is quite trifling. Does not getting up in a hurry cause a sense of faintness sometimes?’
‘Yes, in people who are not strong.’
‘If we don’t talk about being faint it will go off. Faintness is such a queer thing that to think of it is to have it. Let us talk as we were talking before—about your young man and other indifferent matters, so as to divert my thoughts from fainting, dear Berta. I have always thought the book was to be forwarded to that gentleman because he was a connection of yours by marriage, and he had asked for it. And so you have met this—this Mr. Julian, and gone for walks with him in evenings, I suppose, just as young men and women do who are courting?’
‘No, indeed—what an absurd child you are!’ said Ethelberta. ‘I knew him once, and he is interesting; a few little things like that make it all up.’