weeks, than to break a girl's
heart for a whole year; and I know it takes nearly that time for a
well-brought-up young lady to get over a _real_ matrimonial
disappointment. However, shy or not shy, they certainly ought to be
explicit. It's too bad to miss a chance because we cannot interpret
the metaphor in which some bashful swain thinks it decorous to couch
his proposals; and I once knew a young lady who, happening to dislike
needlework, and replying in the negative to the insidious question,
"Can you sew a button?" never knew for months that she had actually
declined a man she was really fond of, with large black whiskers, and
two-and-twenty hundred a year. Women can't be too cautious.

CHAPTER XVI.

I was not sorry to be once again fairly settled in Lowndes Street.
Even in the winter London has its charms. People don't watch
everything you do or carp at everything you say. If there is more
apparent constraint, there is more real liberty than in the country.
Besides, you have so much society, and everybody is so much pleasanter
in the metropolis during December than July. The frost had set in
again harder than ever. Brilliant and White Stockings, like
"Speir-Adam's steeds," were compelled to "bide in stall." John was
lingering at the Lloyds or elsewhere in the Principality, though
expected back every day. Aunt Deborah was still weak, and had only
just sufficient energy to forbid Captain Lovell the house, and insist
on my never speaking to him. I can't think what she had found out or
what Aunt Horsingham had told her; but this I know, that if ever I
have a daughter, and I don't want her to like Mr. Dash, or to be
continually thinking about him, I shall not forbid her to speak to
him; nor shall I take every opportunity of impressing on her that he
is wild, unprincipled, reckless, and dissipated, and that the only
redeeming points about him are his agreeable conversation and his good
looks. Altogether, I should have been somewhat dull had it not been
for Mrs. Lumley; but of that vivacious lady I saw a good deal, and I
confess took a far greater pleasure in her society than on our first
acquaintance I should have esteemed possible. When I am ill at ease
with myself, not thoroughly satisfied with my own conduct, I always
like the society of _fast_ people; their liberality of sentiment and
general carelessness of demeanour convey no tacit reproach on my own
want of restraint, and I feel more at home with them th