yes were
lively, her figure elastic: 'We must all of us go down to the old shop
and shake his hand there--every man Jack of us!--I'm only quoting the
sailors, Harriet--and that's the way to win him.'
She snapped her fingers, laughing. Harriet stared at her, and so did
Andrew, though for a different reason. She seemed to be transformed.
Seeing him inclined to gape, she ran up to him, caught up his chin
between her ten fingers, and kissed him on both cheeks, saying:
'You needn't come, if you're too proud, you know, little man!'
And to Harriet's look of disgust, the cause for which she divined with
her native rapidity, she said: 'What does it matter? They will talk, but
they can't look down on us now. Why, this is my doing!'
She came tripping to her tall sister, to ask plaintively 'Mayn't I be
glad?' and bobbed a curtsey.
Harriet desired Andrew to leave them. Flushed and indignant she then
faced the Countess.
'So unnecessary!' she began. 'What can excuse your indiscretion,
Louisa?'
The Countess smiled to hear her talking to her younger sister once more.
She shrugged.
'Oh, if you will keep up the fiction, do. Andrew knows--he isn't an
idiot--and to him we can make light of it now. What does anybody's birth
matter, who's well off!'
It was impossible for Harriet to take that view. The shop, if not the
thing, might still have been concealed from her husband, she thought.
'It mattered to me when I was well off,' she said, sternly.
'Yes; and to me when I was; but we've had a fall and a lesson since
that, my dear. Half the aristocracy of England spring from shops!--Shall
I measure you?'
Harriet never felt such a desire to inflict a slap upon mortal cheek.
She marched away from her in a tiff. On the other hand, Andrew was
half fascinated by the Countess's sudden re-assumption of girlhood, and
returned--silly fellow! to have another look at her. She had ceased, on
reflection, to be altogether so vivacious: her stronger second nature
had somewhat resumed its empire: still she was fresh, and could at times
be roguishly affectionate and she patted him, and petted him, and made
much of him; slightly railed at him for his uxoriousness and domestic
subjection, and proffered him her fingers to try the taste of. The truth
must be told: Mr. Duflian not being handy, she in her renewed earthly
happiness wanted to see her charms in a woman's natural mirror: namely,
the face of man: if of man on his knees, all the bet
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