Page:Dred, A Tale of the Great Dismal Swamp Volume 1.djvu/20

14 "'Have you read it, Mr. Clayton?' said I,

"'Yes, Miss Nina,' said he, quite piously.

"'What makes you read such bad books?' said I, very innocently.

"Then there followed a general fuss and talk; and the gentlemen, you know, would not have their wives or their sisters read anything naughty, for the world. They wanted us all to be like snow-flakes, and all that. And they were quite high, telling they wouldn't marry this, and they wouldn't marry that, till at last I made them a curtsey, and said, 'Gentlemen, we ladies are infinitely obliged to you, but we don't intend to marry people that read naughty books, either. Of course you know snow-flakes don't like smut!'

"Now, I really didn't mean anything by it, except to put down these men, and stand up for my sex. But Clayton took it in real earnest. Tie grew red and grew pale, and was just as angry as he could be. Well, the quarrel raged about three days. Then, do you know, I made him give up, and own that he was in the wrong. There, I think he was, too,—don't you? Don't you think men ought to be as good as we are, any way?"

"Miss Nina, I should think you would be afraid to express yourself so positively."

"O, if I cared a sou for any of them, perhaps I should. But there isn't one of the train that I would give that for!" said she, flirting a shower of peanut-shells into the air.

"Yes, but, Miss Nina, some time or other you must marry somebody. You need somebody to take care of the property and place."

"O, that's it, is it? You are tired of keeping accounts, are you, with me to spend the money? Well, I don't wonder. How I pity anybody that keeps accounts! Isn't it horrid, Harry? Those awful books! Do you know that Mme. Ardaine set out that 'we girls' should keep account of our expenses? I just tried it two weeks. I had a headache and weak eyes, and actually it nearly ruined my