"

"Ah, you admit that he has rights?"

"Not at all. I simply assert that you have none."

"I beg your pardon. I have claims which I mean to enforce. I have a
claim upon your undivided attention, when I pay you a morning call."

"Your claim is certainly answered. Have I been uncivil, pray?"

"Not uncivil, perhaps, but inconsiderate. You have been sighing for the
company of a third person, which you can't expect me to relish."

"Why not, pray? If I, a lady, can put up with Mr. Johnson's society, why
shouldn't you, one of his own sex?"

"Because he is so outrageously conceited. You, as a lady, or at any rate
as a woman, like conceited men."

"Ah, yes; I have no doubt that I, as a woman, have all kinds of improper
tastes. That's an old story."

"Admit, at any rate, that our friend is conceited."

"Admit it? Why, I have said so a hundred times. I have told him so."

"Indeed! It has come to that, then?"

"To what, pray?"

"To that critical point in the friendship of a lady and gentleman, when
they bring against each other all kinds of delightful charges of moral
obliquity. Take care, Miss Blunt! A couple of intelligent
New-Englanders, of opposite sex, young, unmarried, are pretty far gone,
when they begin morally to reprobate each other. So you told Mr. Johnson
that he is conceited? And I suppose you added, that he was also
dreadfully satirical and skeptical? What was his rejoinder? Let me see.
Did he ever tell you that you were a little bit affected?"

"No: he left that for you to say, in this very ingenious manner. Thank
you, Sir."

"He left it for me to deny, which is a great deal prettier. Do you think
the manner ingenious?"

"I think the matter, considering the day and hour, very profane, Mr.
Locksley. Suppose you go away and let me read my Bible."

"Meanwhile," I asked, "what shall I do?"

"Go and read yours, if you have one."

"I haven't."

I was nevertheless compelled to retire, with the promise of a second
audience in half an hour. Poor Miss Blunt owes it to her conscience to
read a certain number of chapters. What a pure and upright soul she is!
And what an edifying spectacle is much of our feminine piety! Women find
a place for everything in their commodious little minds, just as they do
in their wonderfully subdivided trunks, when they go on a journey. I
have no doubt that this young lady stows away her religion in a corner,
just as she does her Sunday bonnet,--and, when the proper moment