“Ah, I tired of them, and him too, in a fortnight. Why, Charlotte, it was a perfect surfeit of antimony wrapped up in honey.”
“Then, your long walks last summer with Dr. Ives.”
“Were very pleasant walks until he grew sentimental, and suddenly popped down upon his knees, one day, in the high grass, like a winged partridge; he looked so ridiculous that really I could not help laughing in his face. It was a bitter pill; doctor, as he was, he could not swallow it.”
“For six weeks you flirted with Henry Nixon,” continued Charlotte. “Why, he was your shadow, Lucia; what could have tempted you to trifle with him as you did? I am sure he loved you.”
“There you are mistaken,” was the reply. “He was only flattered by my smiles and proud of being in my train. Such magnificent bouquets, too, as he brought me! It was party season, you know, and his self-love, thus embodied in a flower to be worn by me, was quite as harmless to him as convenient for myself.”
“But not so harmless were the smiles and flattering words you bestowed upon young Fairlie. O, Lucia, your thoughtless vanity ruined the happiness of that young man, and drove him off to a foreign clime, leaving a widowed mother to mourn his absence.”
“Indeed, Charlotte,” replied Lucia, in a saddened tone, “I had no idea James Fairlie really loved me until too late. He painted so exquisitely that, at my father’s request, he was engaged to paint my portrait. I believe I gave him a lock of my hair, and allowed him to retain a small miniature which he had sketched of me; but, as I told him, when he so unexpectedly declared his love, I meant nothing.”
“Ah, Lucia,” said her friend, reproachfully, “and did you mean nothing when you allowed the visits of Colonel W——?”
“O, the gallant Colonel! Excuse me Charlotte—a pair of epaulettes answer very well, sometimes, in place of a heart. The Colonel’s uniform was a taking escort through the fashionable promenades; and, then, he was so vain that it did one good to see him lose the ‘bold front of Mars’ in the soft blandishments of Cupid; and not forgetting, even when on his knees, to note, in an opposite mirror, the irresistible effect of his gallant form at the feet of a fair lady! So far, I think, I have supported my ground against your accusation of coquetry,” added Lucia.
“On the contrary, my dear Lucia, I am sorry to say that you have but proved its truth,” answered Charlotte. “Sorry, because there is, to my mind, no character so vain and heartless as that of a coquette, and I would not that any one whom I love should rest under such an imputation. The moment a woman stoops to coquetry she loses the charm of modesty and frankness, and renders herself unworthy the pure affection of any noble-minded man. It betrays vanity, a want of self-respect, and an utter disregard for the feelings of others. A coquette is a purely selfish being, who, by her hollow smiles and heartless professions, wins to the shrine of her vanity many an honest heart, and then casts it from her as idly as a child the plaything of which he has tired. She is unworthy the name of woman.”