"
Sir Willoughby caught up the Ox--Whitford.
Bursting with laughter in his joyful pride, he called it a portrait of
old Vernon in society. For she thought a trifle too highly of Vernon,
as here and there a raw young lady does think of the friends of her
plighted man, which is waste of substance properly belonging to him, as
it were, in the loftier sense, an expenditure in genuflexions to
wayside idols of the reverence she should bring intact to the temple.
Derision instructs her.
Of the other subject--her jealousy--he had no desire to hear more. She
had winced: the woman had been touched to smarting in the girl: enough.
She attempted the subject once, but faintly, and his careless parrying
threw her out. Clara could have bitten her tongue for that reiterated
stupid slip on the name of Whitford; and because she was innocent at
heart she persisted in asking herself how she could be guilty of it.
"You both know the botanic titles of these wild flowers," she said.
"Who?" he inquired.
"You and Miss Dale."
Sir Willoughby shrugged. He was amused.
"No woman on earth will grace a barouche so exquisitely as my Clara."
"Where?" said she.
"During our annual two months in London. I drive a barouche there, and
venture to prophesy that my equipage will create the greatest
excitement of any in London. I see old Horace De Craye gazing!"
She sighed. She could not drag him to the word, or a hint of it
necessary to her subject.
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