more than esteem. Yet once, when you were sitting in your old place, on
my knee, embracing and fondly embraced, and I asked you if you could not
love, you made answer, "I could easily say so, whether I did or not--YOU
SHOULD JUDGE BY MY ACTIONS!" And another time, when you were in the
same posture, and I reproached you with indifference, you replied in
these words, "Do I SEEM INDIFFERENT?" Was I to blame after this to
indulge my passion for the loveliest of her sex? Or what can I think?

S. I am no prude, Sir.

H. Yet you might be taken for one. So your mother said, "It was hard
if you might not indulge in a little levity." She has strange notions
of levity. But levity, my dear, is quite out of character in you. Your
ordinary walk is as if you were performing some religious ceremony: you
come up to my table of a morning, when you merely bring in the
tea-things, as if you were advancing to the altar. You move in
minuet-time: you measure every step, as if you were afraid of offending
in the smallest things. I never hear your approach on the stairs, but
by a sort of hushed silence. When you enter the room, the Graces wait
on you, and Love waves round your person in gentle undulations,
breathing balm into the soul! By Heaven, you are an angel! You look
like one at this instant! Do I not adore you--and have I merited this
return?

S. I have repeatedly answered that question. You sit and fancy things
out of your own head, and then lay them to my charge. There is not a
word of truth in your suspicions.

H. Did I not overhear the conversation down-stairs last night, to which
you were a party? Shall I repeat it?