Page:The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (emended first edition), Volume 1.djvu/180

168 "Why have they left you alone?" I asked.

"It is I who have left them," was the smiling rejoinder. "I was wearied to death with small-talk—nothing wears me out like that. I cannot imagine how they can go on as they do."

I could not help smiling at the serious depth of her wonderment.

"Is it that they think it a duty to be continually talking," pursued she; "and so never pause to think, but fill up with aimless trifles and vain repetitions, when subjects of real interest fail to present themselves?—or do they really take a pleasure in such discourse?"

"Very likely they do," said I: "their shallow minds can hold no great ideas, and their light heads are carried away by trivialities, that would not move a better furnished skull;—and their only alternative to such discourse, is to plunge over head of ears into the slough of scandal—which is their chief delight."

"Not all of them surely?" cried the lady, astonished at the bitterness of my remark.