Page:Dream Life - Mitchell - 1899? Altemus.djvu/22

 My aunt laid down her knitting, looked at me over the rim of her spectacles, andtook snuff.

I said nothing.

"How many times have you been in love, Isaac?" said she.

It was now my turn to say"Pshaw!"

Judging from her look of assurance, I could not possibly have made a more satisfactory reply.

My aunt finished the needle she was upon—smoothed the stocking leg over her knee, and looking at me with a very comical expression, said,—"Isaac, you are a sad fellow!"

I did not like the tone of this: it sounded very much as if it would have been in the mouth of any one else'bad fellow.'

And she went on to ask me in a very bantering way, if my stock of youthful loves was not nearly exhausted; and she cited the episode of the fair-haired Enrica, as perhaps the most tempting that I could draw from my experience.

A better man than myself,—if he had only a fair share of vanity,—would have been nettled at this; and I replied somewhat tartly, that I had never professed to write my experiences. These might be more or less tempting; but certainly, if they were of a kind which I have attempted