Night and Morning, Volume 2Lytton, Edward Bulwer Lytton, Baron
General
Night and Morning, Volume 2
Lytton, Edward Bulwer Lytton, Baron
English fiction
"To oblige me!" said the young man, sentimentally; whereupon the young
lady took the glass, and looking very kindly at her Ganymede, said, "Your
health!" and sipped, and made a wry face--then she looked at the
passengers, tittered, and said, "I can't bear wine!" and so, very slowly
and daintily, sipped up the rest. A silent and expressive squeeze of the
hand, on returning the glass, rewarded the young man, and proved the
salutary effect of his prescription.
"All right!" cried the coachman: the ostler twitched the cloths from the
leaders, and away went the "Nelson Slow and Sure," with as much
pretension as if it had meant to do the ten miles in an hour. The pale
gentleman took from his waistcoat pocket a little box containing gum-
arabic, and having inserted a couple of morsels between his lips, he next
drew forth a little thin volume, which from the manner the lines were
printed was evidently devoted to poetry.
The smart gentleman, who since the episode of the sherry and water had
kept his glass fixed upon the young lady, now said, with a genteel smirk:
"That young gentleman seems very auttentive, miss!"
"He is a very good young man, sir, and takes great care of me."
"Not your brother, miss,--eh?"
"La, sir--why not?"
"No faumily likeness--noice-looking fellow enough! But your oiyes and
mouth--ah, miss!"
Miss turned away her head, and uttered with pert vivacity: "I never likes
compliments, sir! But the young man is not my brother."
"A sweetheart,--eh? Oh fie, miss! Haw! haw!" and the auburn-whiskered
Adonis poked Philip in the knee with one hand, and the pale gentleman in
the ribs with the other. The latter looked up, and reproachfully; the
former drew in his legs, and uttered an angry ejaculation.
"Well, sir, there is no harm in a sweetheart, is there?" "None in the
least, ma'am; I advoise you to double the dose. We often hear of two
strings to a bow. Daun't you think it would be noicer to have two beaux
to your string?" As he thus wittily expressed himself, the gentleman
took off his cap, and thrust his fingers through a very curling and
comely head of hair; the young lady looked at him with evident coquetry,
and said, "How you do run on, you gentlemen!"
"I may well run on, miss, as long as I run aufter you," was the gallant
reply.
Here the pale gentleman, evidently annoyed by being talked across, shut
his book up, and looked round. His eye rested on Philip, who, whether
from the heat of the day or from the forgetfulness of thought, had pushed
his cap from his brows; and the gentleman, after staring at him for a few
moments with great earnestness, sighed so heavily that it attracted the
notice of all the passengers.
"Are you unwell, sir?" asked the young lady, compassionately.
"A little pain in my side, nothing more!"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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