‘Why, some persons, strangers to me, talked of calling in the evening on business,’ answered her father, not without embarrassment, for he would have little brooked a disappointment which might have thrown ridicule on his judgment; ‘it is quite uncertain.’
‘Well, we shall not pardon them for disturbing our party,’ said Julia, ‘unless they bring as much good-humour and as susceptible hearts as my friend and admirer, for so he has dubbed himself, Mr. Pleydell.’
‘Ah, Miss Julia,’ said Pleydell, offering his arm with an air of gallantry to conduct her into the eating-room, ‘the time has been, when I returned from Utrecht in the year 1738--’
‘Pray don’t talk of it,’ answered the young lady; ‘we like you much better as you are. Utrecht, in Heaven’s name! I daresay you have spent all the intervening years in getting rid so completely of the effects of your Dutch education.’
‘O forgive me, Miss Mannering,’ said the Lawyer, ‘the Dutch are a much more accomplished people in point of gallantry than their volatile neighbours are willing to admit. They are constant as clock-work in their attentions.’
‘I should tire of that,’ said Julia.
‘Imperturbable in their good temper,’ continued Pleydell.
‘Worse and worse,’ said the young lady.
‘And then,’ said the old beau garcon, ‘although for six times three hundred and sixty-five days your swain has placed the capuchin round your neck, and the stove under your feet, and driven your little sledge upon the ice in winter, and your cabriole through the dust in summer, you may dismiss him at once, without reason or apology, upon the two thousand one hundred and ninetieth day, which, according to my hasty calculation, and without reckoning leap-years, will complete the cycle of the supposed adoration, and that without your amiable feelings having the slightest occasion to be alarmed for the consequences to those of Mynheer.’
‘Well,’ replied Julia,’ that last is truly a Dutch recommendation, Mr. Pleydell; crystal and hearts would lose all their merit in the world if it were not for their fragility.’