common exclamation from the young men proclaimed their disapprobation; and that night three of them actually repeated the thing, as a well established truth, and two of the three, failing of something better to talk about, also announced that Eve was actually engaged to be married.
"There is something excessively indelicate in a young lady's moving about a room without having a gentleman's arm to lean on! I always feel as if such a person was out of her place, and ought to be in the kitchen."
"But, Miss Ring, what well-bred person does it?" sputtered Mr. Moreland. "No one ever heard of such a thing in good society. 'Tis quite shocking! Altogether unprecedented."
"It strikes me as being excessively coarse!"
"Oh! manifestly; quite rustic!" exclaimed Mr. Edson.
"What can possibly be more vulgar?" added Mr. Walworth.
"I never heard of such a thing among the right sort!" said Mr. Mosely.
"A young lady who can be so brazen as to come into a room without a gentleman's arm to lean on, is, in my judgment at least, but indifferently educated, Hajji or no Hajji. Mr. Edson, have you ever felt the tender passion? I know you have been desperately in love, once, at least; do describe to me some of the symptoms, in order that I may know when I am seriously attacked myself by the disease."
"Mais, ceci est ridicule! L'enfant s'est sauvée du Charenton de New-York."
"From the nursery rather, Mademoiselle; you perceive she does not yet know how to walk alone."
Mr. Edson now protested that he was too stupid to feel a passion as intellectual as love, and that he was afraid he was destined by nature to remain as insensible as a block.
"One never knows, Mr. Edson," said the young lady, encouragingly. "Several of my acquaintances, who thought themselves quite safe, have been seized suddenly, and, though none have actually died, more than one has been roughly treated, I assure you."
Here the young men, one and all, protested that she was excessively clever. Then succeeded a pause, for Miss Ring was inviting, with her eyes, a number six to join the circle, her ambition being dissatisfied with five entertainees, as she saw that Miss Trumpet, a rival belle, had managed to get exactly that number, also, in the other room. All the gentlemen availed themselves of the cessation in wit to gape, and Mr. Edson took the occasion to remark to Mr. Summerfield that he understood "lots had been sold in seven hundredth street that morning, as high as two hundred dollars a lot."
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