“H’m!” put in Alice.
“What makes the thing so truly delicious,” said Charley, “is the lachrymose and woe-begone figure you make me cut; whereas—”
“Ah?” said Alice, bridling up.
“Whereas a chirpier lover than—”
“Chirpy! oh!”
“Why, Jack-Whack, if she did not love me the very first time she ever saw me,—love?—if she did not dote upon—”
“Dote indeed! Very well! very well! He felt sure, did he? Now, Jack, I’ll leave it to you. I’ll tell you just what he said, and let you decide whether they were the words of a ‘chirpy’ lover. Chirpy, indeed! Mr. Frobisher, you are too absurd! We were walking up and down the piazza, and I had on my green and white silk dress,—plaid, you know; and he said—the first thing he said was—I remember it as well as if it had been yesterday—”
I drew forth my pencil. Here, after all, providentially as it were, we were to have an authentic version of the amours of the silent man and her of the merry-glancing hazel eyes.
“My dear,” began Charley, with nervous haste, “we are interrupting Jack; let him go on with his reading.”
“Aha!” cried Alice, in triumph, “I thought—”