Page:The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (emended first edition), Volume 1.djvu/243

Rh "Oh, I beg your pardon! I perceive Cupid's arrows have been too sharp for you: the wounds being more than skin-deep, are not yet healed and bleed afresh at every mention of the loved one's name."

"Say rather," interposed Miss Wilson, "that Mr. Markham feels that name is unworthy to be mentioned in the presence of right-minded females. I wonder Eliza, you should think of referring to that unfortunate person—you might know the mention of her would be anything but agreeable to any one here present."

How could this be borne? I rose and was about to clap my hat upon my head and burst away, in wrathful indignation, from the house; but recollecting—just in time to save my dignity—the folly of such a proceedings and how it would only give my fair tormentors a merry laugh at my expense, for the sake of one I acknowledged in my own heart to be unworthy of the slightest sacrifice—though the ghost of my former reverence and love so hung about