courtesies and compliments exchanged, Aunt Eliza, greatly
condescending, talked the fashions with Mrs Larkin; while the
farmer and I, perspiring with the unusual effort, exchanged
remarks on the mutability of the weather and the steady fall in
the price of corn. (Who would have thought, to hear us, that
only two short days ago we had confronted each other on either
side of a hedge,--I triumphant, provocative, derisive; he
flushed, wroth, cracking his whip, and volleying forth profanity?

So powerful is all-subduing ceremony!) Sabina the while,
demurely seated with a Pilgrim's Progress on her knee, and
apparently absorbed in a brightly coloured presentment of
"Apollyon Straddling Right across the Way," eyed me at times with
shy interest; but repelled all Aunt Eliza's advances with a
frigid politeness for which I could not sufficiently admire her.

"It's surprising to me," I heard my aunt remark presently, "how
my eldest nephew, Edward, despises little girls. I heard him
tell Charlotte the other day that he wished he could exchange her
for a pair of Japanese guinea-pigs. It made the poor child cry.
Boys are so heartless!" (I saw Sabina stiffen as she sat, and
her tip-tilted nose twitched scornfully.) "Now this boy here--"
(my soul descended into my very boots. Could the woman have
intercepted any of my amorous glances at the baker's wife?) "Now
this boy," my aunt went on, "is more human altogether. Only
yesterday he took his sister to the baker's shop, and spent his
only penny buying her sweets. I thought it showed such a nice
disposition. I wish Edward were more like him!"

I breathed again. It was unnecessary to explain my real motives