understood,' said Belle; 'and it was very wrong of you to take advantage
of my ignorance, and make me say such things.' 'Why so?' said I; 'if you
said them, I said them too.' 'You did so,' said Belle; 'but I believe
you were merely bantering and jeering.' 'As I told you before, Belle,'
said I, 'the chief difficulty which I find in teaching you Armenian
proceeds from your persisting in applying to yourself and me every
example I give.' 'Then you meant nothing after all?' said Belle, raising
her voice. 'Let us proceed,' said I; 'sirietsi, I loved.' 'You never
loved any one but yourself,' said Belle; 'and what's more--'
'Sirietsits, I will love,' said I, 'siriestsies, thou wilt love.' 'Never
one so thoroughly heartless,' said Belle. 'I tell you what, Belle, you
are becoming intolerable; but we will change the verb, or rather I will
now proceed to tell you here, that some of the Armenian conjugations have
their anomalies; one species of these I wish to bring before your notice.
As old Villotte {97} says--from whose work I first contrived to pick up
the rudiments of Armenian--"Est verborum transitivorum, quorum
infinitivus--" But I forgot, you don't understand Latin. He says there
are certain transitive verbs, whose infinitive is in out-saniel; the
preterite in outsi; the imperative in oue: for example,
parghatsoutsaniem, I irritate--'

'You do, you do!' said Belle; 'and it will be better for both of us, if
you leave off doing so.'

'You would hardly believe, Belle,' said I, 'that the Armenian is in some
respects closely connected with the Irish, but so it is; for example,
that word parghatsoutsaniem is evidently derived from the same root as
feargaim, which, in Irish, is as much as to say I vex.'

'You do, indeed!' said Belle, sobbing.

'But how do you account for it?'

'O man, man!' said Belle, bursting into tears, 'for what purpose do you
ask a poor ignorant girl such a question, unless it be to vex and
irritate her? If you wish to display your learning, do so to the wise
and instructed, and not to me, who can scarcely read or write. Oh, leave
off your nonsense; yet I know you will not do so, for it is the breath of
your nostrils! I could have wished we should have parted in kindness,
but you will not permit it. I have deserved better at your hands than
such treatment. The whole time we have kept company together in this
place, I have scarcely had one kind word from you, but the strangest--'
And here t