ine a gentleman. Go and teach
school, or open a corner grocery, or sit in a law-office all day,
waiting for clients: _then_ you will be sociable. As yet, you are only
agreeable. It _is_ your own fault, if people don't care for you. You
don't care for them. That you should be indifferent to their applause is
all very well; but you don't care for their indifference. You are
amiable, you are very kind, and you are also very lazy. You consider
that you are working now, don't you? Many persons would not call it
work."

It was now certainly my turn to fold my arms.

"And now," added my companion, as I did so, "I beg your pardon."

"This was certainly worth waiting for," said I. "I don't know what
answer to make. My head swims. I don't know whether you have been
attacking me or praising me. So you advise me to open a corner grocery,
do you?"

"I advise you to do something that will make you a little less
satirical. You had better marry, for instance."

"_Je ne demande pas mieux._ Will you have me? I can't afford it."

"Marry a rich woman."

I shook my head.

"Why not?" asked Miss Blunt. "Because people would accuse you of being
mercenary? What of that? I mean to marry the first rich man who offers.
Do you know that I am tired of living alone in this weary old way,
teaching little girls their gamut, and turning and patching my dresses?
I mean to marry the first man who offers."

"Even if he is poor?"

"Even if he is poor, ugly, and stupid."

"I am your man, then. Would you take me, if I were to offer?"

"Try and see."

"Must I get upon my knees?"

"No, you need not even do that. Am I not on mine? It would be too fine
an irony. Remain as you are, lounging back in your chair, with your
thumbs in your waistcoat."

If I were writing a romance now, instead of transcribing facts, I would
say that I knew not what might have happened at this juncture, had not
the door opened and admitted the Captain and Mr. Johnson. The latter was
in the highest spirits.

"How are you, Miss Esther? So you have been breaking your leg, eh? How
are you, Mr. Locksley? I wish I were a doctor now. Which is it, right or
left?"

In this simple fashion he made himself agreeable to Miss Blunt. He
stopped to dinner and talked without ceasing. Whether our hostess had
talked herself out in her very animated address to myself an hour
before, or whether she preferred to oppose no obstacle to Mr. Johnson's
fluency, or whether she was indifferen