"
"Miss Dodd is very natural too--is she not?"
"Very. Pertness and vulgarity are natural enough--to some people."
"My uncle likes her the best of the two."
"Then your uncle is mad. But the fact is, men are no judges in such
cases; they are always unjust to their own sex, and as blind to the
faults of ours as beetles."
"But surely, aunt, she is very arch and lively."
"Pert and fussy, you mean."
"Pretty, at all events? Rather?"
"What, with that snub nose!!?"
Lucy offered to invite other neighbors; Mrs. Bazalgette replied she
didn't want to be bothered with rurality. "You can ask Captain Dodd,
if you like; there is no need to invite the sister."
"Oh yes, I must; my uncle likes her the best."
"But _I_ don't; and I am only here for a day or two."
"Miss Dodd would be hurt. It would be unkind--discourteous."
"No, no. She watches him all the time like a little dragon."
_"Apres?_ We have no sinister designs on Mr. Dodd, have we?" and
something unusually keen flashed upon Aunt Bazalgette out of the tail
of the quiet Lucy's eye.
Mrs. Bazalgette looked cross. "Nonsense, Lucy; so tiresome! Can't we
have an agreeable person without tacking on a disagreeable one?"
"Aunt," said Lucy, pathetically, "ask me anything else in the world,
but don't ask me to be rude, for _I can't."_
"Well, then, you are bound to entertain her, since she is your choice,
and leave me mine."
Lucy acquiesced softly.
David, tutored by his sister, now tried to seem interested in her who
came between him and Lucy, and a miserable hand he made of this his
first piece of acting.
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