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Rh, Aunt Eliza, greatly condescending, talked the fashions with Mrs. Larkin; while the farmer and I, perspiring with the unusual effort, exchanged remarks on the mutability of the weather and the steady fall in the price of corn. (Who would have thought, to hear us, that only two short days ago we had confronted each other on either side of a hedge? I triumphant, provocative, derisive? He flushed, wroth, cracking his whip, and volleying forth profanity? So powerful is all-subduing ceremony!) Sabina the while, demurely seated with a Pilgrim's Progress on her knee, and apparently absorbed in a brightly-coloured presentment of 'Apollyon Straddling Right across the Way,' eyed me at times with shy interest; but repelled all Aunt Eliza's advances with a frigid politeness for which I could not sufficiently admire her.

'It's surprising to me,' I heard my aunt remark presently, 'how my eldest nephew, Edward, despises little girls. I heard him tell Charlotte the other day that he wished he could exchange her for a pair of Japanese guinea-pigs. It made the poor child cry. Boys are so heartless!' (I saw Sabina stiffen as she sat, and her tip-tilted nose twitched scornfully.) 'Now