Page:Dred, A Tale of the Great Dismal Swamp Volume 1.djvu/17

Rh "And are you corresponding with all these lovers, Miss Nina?"

"Yes—isn't it fun? Their letters, you know, can't speak. If they could, when they come rustling together in the hag, wouldn't there be a muss?"

"Miss Nina, I think you have given your heart to this last one."

"O, nonsense, Harry! Haven't got any heart!—don't care two pins for any of them! All I want is to have a good time. As to love, and all that, I don't believe I could love any of them; I should be tired to death of any of them in six weeks. I never liked anything that long."

"Miss Nina, you must excuse me, but I want to ask again, is it right to trifle with the feelings of gentlemen in this way?"

"Why not?—Isn't all fair in war? Don't they trifle with us girls, every chance they get—and sit up so pompous in their rooms, and smoke cigars, and talk us over, as if they only had to put out their finger and say, 'Come here,' to get any of us? I tell you, it's fun to bring them down!—Now, there 's that horrid George Emmons—I tell you, if he didn't flirt all winter with Mary Stephens, and got everybody to laughing about her!—it was so evident, you see, that she liked him—she couldn't help showing it, poor little thing!—and then my lord would settle his collar, and say he hadn't quite made up his mind to take her, and all that. Well, I haven't made up my mind to take him, either—and so poor Emma is avenged. As to the old bach—that smooth-dicky man—you see, he can't be hurt; for his heart is rubbed as smooth and hard as his dicky, with falling in love and out again. He 's been turned off by three girls, now; and his shoes squeak as brisk as ever, and he's just as jolly. You see, he didn't use to be so rich. Lately, he's come into a splendid property; so, if I don't take him, poor man, there are enough that would be glad of him."

"Well, then, but as to that other one?"