“Fears!” answered Lucia. “Why, Charlotte, you don’t think I would give up my affections to one who has no heart, and never had one; or, if he had, it has been so completely divided and sub-divided, quartered and requartered, and parceled out by inches, that not a fragment is left to hang a hope upon! Why, I should as soon think of falling in love with one of those effigies of beau-dom—those waxen busts at a barber’s window—as with this hollow-hearted Frank Gadsby.”
“You are right, Lucia; for I certainly think that when you marry, it would be well to have at least one heart between you and your cara sposa, for I am sure you have none,” said Charlotte, laughing.
“Now, that is the unkindest cut of all, Charlotte—I no heart! Why, I am ‘all heart,’ as poor Mrs. Skewton would say,” answered Lucia.
“Ah, Lucia, it is conceded by all, I believe, that you are an arrant coquette.”
“I a coquette!” exclaimed Lucia. “I deny the charge; there is my gage!” drawing off her little glove and throwing it at the feet of Charlotte.
“I accept the challenge,” answered her friend. “In the first place, let me remind you of a poor Mr. F——.”
“You need not remind me of him,” answered Lucia. “I am sure I shall not soon forget him, with his tiresome calls every day, nor his attempts to look tender with those small, twinkling gray eyes of his. Imagine an owl in love, that’s all.”
“And yet you encouraged his visits. Then, there was young Dornton.”
“Dornton! yes, I remember. Poor fellow, how he did torment me with his execrable verses!”
“Execrable! If I remember, Lucia, you once told me they were beautiful.”