"Well, men are creatures, to be sure! To make friendship over bullets and gunpowder. And supposing you'd been killed? Now, just to satisfy me, just for a moment suppose that?"
Whereupon, in his odd way, he stared in my face; and said he thought the calamity would have mightily become me.
"And to have been made a widow for another person—and that person, one's own servant. But I have given Josephine warning"—
"Nonsense!" said Frederick, and I did stare. "Nonsense, my darling," he repeated in his tender way; but I was not to be persuaded.
"Why, the creature was bold enough before. But with the thought in her head that her master had been fighting a duel, and all about her, she'd be as conceited, the house wouldn't hold her. She goes: now, it's no use talking, of that I'm determined."
"And so because a foolish young man—not but what he's a very good fellow—will write letters to a silly girl"—
"Oh, never tell me! He'd never have sent letters and nosegays to such a person, if she hadn't encouraged him."
"Ha! that's how you women help one another! The man begins the injury, and the sister-woman finishes it. No, Lotty; you'll do nothing of the sort. You'll not part with Josephine; and, more than that, you'll see young Bliss to-day. Who'd have thought to fight the brother of"—
"The fisherwoman? Well, it's very odd; I must say it's odd: and if I do consent to see him, I know I shall only be laughed at."
"Do what's right, Lotty; and then you may laugh with the laughers."