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 slight frame became nerved; her distinguished face quickened with scorn.

"Strange remarks!" said she: "most inconsiderate! Reproach in return for bounty is misplaced."

"Bounty! Do you call five pounds bounty?"

"I do: and bounty which, had I not given it to Dr. Boultby's intended school, of the erection of which I approve, and in no sort to his Curate, who seems ill-advised in his manner of applying for—or rather extorting subscriptions,—bounty, I repeat, which, but for this consideration, I should instantly reclaim."

Donne was thick-skinned: he did not feel all or half that the tone, air, glance of the speaker expressed: he knew not on what ground he stood.

"Wretched place—this Yorkshire," he went on. "I could never have formed an idear of the country had I not seen it; and the people—rich and poor—what a set! How corse and uncultivated! They would be scouted in the south."

Shirley leaned forwards on the table, her nostrils dilating a little, her taper fingers interlaced and compressing each other hard.

"The rich," pursued the infatuated and unconscious Donne, "are a parcel of misers—never living as persons with their incomes ought to live: you scarsely—(you must excuse Mr. Donne's pronunciation, reader; it was very choice; he considered it genteel, and prided himself on his southern accent;