Page:Four interesting tales.pdf/12

12. She wished she had not withdrawn the kerchief from her face; it was an unfortunate removal ; her nose, she was convinced, would be her ruin. She wept ; for, although she was too cautious to be in love with him to distraction, she felt a something, a palpitation, a mantling of the blood around the heart, which whispered her that the gentleman’s departure thus indisposed, was vexatious. “Why,” exclaimed she, “why did my mother long for mulberries!” It was an unfilial apostrophe ; and had her parent desired the tail of a hippopotamus, she could not have uttered more.

Conway’s disposition was not an irraseible one, since he never anathematized the cook when the beef was over-roasted, though the fault was without remedy, nor cursed the housemaid to the depth of hell, when she cut him the upper side of the loaf, though no one could be fonder of kissing-crust than he: but in spite of his placidity, on quitting Maria, he vehemently exclaimed, “Did ever mortal see such a nose! Did ever mortal see such a one! She has humour and ease ; her ways are ways of pleasantness ; she enjoys that gaiety of heart which I admire, and that—intolerable red nose which I cannot admire for my life. Among the variety that exists, why in the name of wonder did she choose that?” As this was reasoning like a maniac, it were not uncharitable to suppose him in love.

That there is but one good reason for being in love, namely, the impossibility to avoid it, is an idea so truly good in itself, that, had it not sprung from my own pericranium, I should have attributed it to the most venerable antiquity, and classed it for wisdom, with the wisest sayings of the ancient sages.

Fortunately for Cupid, business recalled Conway to Mr Hargrave’s, and fortunately for Maria, his visit ended in an invitation at pleasure. The wise