know, can never deserve to be called mean-spirited--nor would it so
appear to you. I am persuaded that there is a degree of fondness, of
affection, enthusiastic affection, which disposes the temper always to a
certain softness and yieldingness, which, I conceive, would be
peculiarly attractive to you, and essential to your happiness: in short,
I know your temper could not bear contradiction."

"Oh, indeed, ma'am, you are quite mistaken."

"Quite mistaken! and at the very moment he reddens with anger, because I
contradict, even in the softest, gentlest manner in my power, his
opinion of himself!"

"You don't understand me, indeed, you don't understand me," said Mr.
Beaumont, beating with his whip the leaves of a bush which was near him.
"Either you don't understand me, or I don't understand you. I am much
more able to bear contradiction than you think I am, provided it be
direct. But I do not love--what I am doing at this instant," added he,
smiling--"I don't love beating about the bush."

"Look there now!--Strange creatures you men are! So like he looks to his
poor father, who used to tell me that he loved to be contradicted, and
yet who would not, I am sure, have lived three days with any woman who
had ventured to contradict him directly. Whatever influence I obtained
in his heart, and whatever happiness we enjoyed in our union, I
attribute to my trusting to my observations on his character rather than
to his own account of himself. Therefore I may be permitted to claim
some judgment of what would suit your hereditary temper."

"Certainly, ma'am, certainly. But to come to the point at once, may I