"
"But he will."
"What right have I to say so? What right have I to constitute Mr.
Hardie my admirer? I would not for all the world put it into any
gentleman's power to say, 'Why say "no," Miss Fountain, before I have
asked you to say "yes"?' Oh!"
And, with this, Lucy put her face into her hands, but they were not
large enough to hide the deep blush that suffused her whole face at
the bare idea of being betrayed into an indelicacy of this sort.
"How could he say that? how could he know?" said Mr. Fountain,
pettishly.
"Uncle, I cannot, I dare not. You and my aunt hate one another; so you
might be tempted to tell her, and she would be sure to tell him.
Besides, I cannot; my very instinct revolts from it. It would not be
modest. I love you, uncle. Let me know your wishes, and have some
faith in my affection, but pray do not press me further. Oh, what have
I done, to be spoken of with so many gentlemen!"
Lucy was in evident agitation, and the blushes glowed more and more
round her snowy hands and between her delicate fingers; and there is
something so sacred about the modesty alarmed of an intelligent young
woman--it is a feeling which, however fantastical, is so genuine in
her, and so manifestly intense beyond all we can ourselves feel of the
kind, that no man who is not utterly stupid or depraved can see it
without a certain awe. Even Mr. Fountain, who looked on Lucy's
distress as transcendent folly with a dash of hypocrisy, could not go
on making her cheek burn so.
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