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 had ready cut and dried, which he never failed to produce:—

1stly.—“Have you had a walk to-day, Miss Helstone?”

2ndly.—“Have you seen your cousin, Moore, lately?”

3rdly.—Does your class at the Sunday-school keep up its number?”

These three questions being put and responded to, between Caroline and Malone reigned silence.

With Donne it was otherwise: he was trouble-some, exasperating. He had a stock of small-talk on hand, at once the most trite and perverse that can well be imagined: abuse of the people of Briarfield; of the natives of Yorkshire generally; complaints of the want of high society; of the backward state of civilization in these districts; murmurings against the disrespectful conduct of the lower orders in the north toward their betters; silly ridicule of the manner of living in these parts,—the want of style, the absence of elegance,—as if he, Donne, had been accustomed to very great doings indeed: an insinuation which his somewhat underbred manner and aspect failed to bear out. These strictures he seemed to think must raise him in the estimation of Miss Helstone, or of any other lady who heard him; whereas with her, at least, they brought him to a level below contempt: though sometimes, indeed, they incensed her; for, a Yorkshire girl herself, she