A wretchedly uneasy guest too, in
the breast of an invalid. I would fain have a purer motive, which
shall dismiss or control it.
Etty,--what are the uses to be made of _her_ talents, while she lives
thus withdrawn into a world of her own? Certainly, she is wrong; I
shall convince her of it, when our friendship, now fairly planted, I
trust, shall have taken root. Now we shall be the best friends in the
world, and I will confide to her my--my--O, I am nodding over my
paper, and that click says the old clock at the stair-head is making
ready to announce midnight.
_Sept. 29th_. Capricious are the ways of womankind! Little Ugly is
more thoroughly self-occupied and undemonstrative than ever. I am
chagrined,--I think I am an ill-used man. I am downright angry and
have half a mind to flirt with Little Handsome, out of spite. Only
Miss Etty is too indifferent to care. I did but leave my old aunt to
Flora, and step back to remark that it was a pleasant Sunday, that the
sermon was homely and dull, and that the singing was discordant. Miss
Etty assented, but very coldly, and presently she bolted into an old
red house, and left me to go home by myself. When we started for
church again, she was among the missing, and we found her in the pew,
on our arrival.
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