Well, well, give me your hand--You must leave Harriet and me together.
She humorously courtesied to him as he bowed to me, taking the compliment
as to herself. She nodded her head to him, as he turned back his when he
was at the door; and when he was gone, If I can but make this man
orderly, said she, I shall not quarrel with my brother for hurrying me,
as he has done.
You are wrong, excessively wrong, Charlotte: you call my lord a silly
man, but can have no proof that he is so, but by his bearing this
treatment from you.
None of your grave airs, my dear. The man is a good sort of man, and
will be so, if you and Lady L---- don't spoil him. I have a vast deal of
roguery, but no ill-nature, in my heart. There is luxury in jesting with
a solemn man, who wants to assume airs of privilege, and thinks he has a
right to be impertinent. I'll tell you how I will manage--I believe I
shall often try his patience, and when I am conscious that I have gone
too far, I will be patient if he is angry with me; so we shall be quits.
Then I'll begin again: he will resent: and if I find his aspect very
solemn--Come, come, no glouting, friend, I will say, and perhaps smile in
his face: I'll play you a tune, or sing you a song--Which, which! Speak
in a moment, or the humour will be off.
If he was ready to cry before, he will laugh then, though against his
will: and as he admires my finger, and my voice, shall we not be
instantly friends?
It signified nothing to rave at her: she will have her way. Poor Lord
G----! At my first knowledge of her, I thought her very lively; but
imagined not that she was indiscreetly so.
Lord G----'s fondness for his saucy bride was, as I have reason to
believe, his fault: I dared not to ask for particulars of their quarrel:
and if I had, and found it so, could not, with such a rallying creature,
have entered into his defence, or censured her.
I went down a few moments before her. Lord G---- whispered me, that he
should be the happiest man in the world, if I, who had such an influence
over her, would stand his friend.
I hope, my lord, said I, that you will not want any influence but your
own. She has a thousand good qualities. She has charming spirits. You
will have nothing to bear with but from them. They will not last always.
Think only, that she can mean nothing by the exertion of them, but
innocent gaiety; and she will every day love your lordship the better for
bearing with her. You know she is generous and noble.