All his youth--that
old Peter Guinness, for whom each day's bumpers had been frothed so
high--came back in the familiar exits and entrances. The words were
innocent enough as he altered them in reading for Kitty, though a
good deal disjointed as to meaning; but she was not critical--forced
herself to take an interest in his stories of Burton and Kean, and how
he first saw old Jefferson.
"I suppose," moving uneasily on her stool at his feet, "that this now
is 'the world, the flesh and the devil!' But," viciously snapping her
eyes, "I like it, I like it! I wish I could think of something else to
do."
In the middle of Peter's croaking of "Poor Yarico," to show her how
Catalani sang it on the London boards, she jumped up and went to the
window. People were coming home from prayer-meeting, husbands and
wives together.
"I suppose every woman must marry, father?" she said.
Peter looked doubtfully at her over his spectacles, opened his mouth
and shut it once or twice. "I judge that is the highest lot for a
woman," he said slowly, "to be the wife of a good man."
"A good man? Oh yes, good enough!" and with that she flung herself
down on the floor, and, putting her head on Peter's knee, cried as if
her heart would break. For Kitty was never in the habit of carrying
her pain off into solitary places: when she cried it must be with her
head on somebody's knee.
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