She infinitely prefers wealth and vanity to
anything, even to vice."
"Vice, sir! is that a term for us to apply to a lady like her, whom we
are all unworthy to approach?" and David turned very red.
"Well, _you_ need not quarrel with _me_ about her, as
_I_ don't with _you."_
"Quarrel with you, dear sir? I hope I feel your kindness, and know my
duty better; but, sir, I am agitated, and my heart is troubled; and
surely you go beyond reason. She is not old enough to have had so many
lovers."
"Humph! she has made good use of her time."
"Even could I believe that she, who seems to me an angel, is a
coquette, still she cannot be hard and heartless as you describe her.
It is impossible; it does not belong to her years."
"You keep harping on her age, Dodd. Do you know her age? If you do,
you have the advantage of me. I have not seen her baptismal register.
Have you?"
"No, sir, but I know what she says is her age."
"That is only evidence of what is not her age."
"But there is her face, sir; that is evidence."
"You have never seen her face; it is always got up to deceive the
public."
"I have seen it at the dawn, before any of you were up."
"What is that? Halo! the deuce--where?"
"In the garden."
"In the garden? Oh, she does not jump off her down-bed on to a
flowerbed. She had been an hour at work on that face before ever the
sun or you got leave to look on it."
"I'll stake my head I tell her age within a year, Mr.
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