Yet, as one cannot very well live without money, especially in the atmosphere which surrounded my hero, and as the law put little money in his purse, and the small annuity left him by some deceased relative almost as little, Mr. Gadsby resolved to make a rich match one of these days; no hurry—there was time enough—he had but to pick and choose—any lady would be proud to become Mrs. Frank Gadsby—and until stern necessity forced it upon him, he would wear no conjugal yoke! And, with this self-laudatory decision, he continued his flirtations.
A conversation which passed between Mr. Gadsby and his friend Clarence Walton, will serve better than any thing I can vouch to substantiate the charge of trifling which I have preferred against him.
This same charge Walton had been reiterating, but to which, with perfect nonchalance, Gadsby answered:
“A trifler—a coquet! Come, that is too bad, Walton! To be sure, I pay the ladies attentions, such as they all expect to receive from the gentlemen. I give flowers to one, I sit at the feet of a second, go off in raptures at the music of a third, press the fair hand of a fourth, waltz with a fifth, and play the gallant to all—but it is only to please them I do it; and then, I say, Walton, if they will fall in love with me, egad, how can I help it!” and, saying this, our coxcomb looked in the glass, as much as to say, “poor things, they surely cannot help it!”
“There was Caroline D——, for instance,” replied his friend; “why, as well as I know your roving propensities, I was induced to think you serious there!”
“What, Cara D.! I smitten! O, no! I said some very tender things to her, to be sure, and visited her every day for a month—wrote her notes, and presented her daily with some choice bouquet; but I was honorable; as soon as I saw she was beginning to like me too well, why, I retreated. Did, upon my honor! Here is her last note—read it Walton!” taking one from a private drawer, evidently crowded with a multitudinous collection of faded bouquets, knots of ribbon, gloves, fans, billet-doux, and silken ringlets of black, brown and golden hair.
“No; excuse me, Frank, from perusing your love notes,” said Walton! “but there was also Emma Gay.”
“Ah, poor Emma! She was a bewitching little creature!” was the answer. “I wrote some verses to her beautiful eyes, and gazed into them so tenderly that they folded themselves in their drooping lids to hide from me. She gave me a lock of her soft, brown hair—I have it somewhere; but, faith, I have so many such tokens that it is difficult to find the right one. O, here it is!”
“And Cornelia Hyde!”
“She was a splendid girl! Sang like an angel, waltzed like a sylph! Yes, I flirted with her half a season. I believe she did get a little too fond of me—sorry for it; upon my soul I meant nothing!”