The unconscious Object chatted away with both, and cut their replies very
short, and did strange things: sent away Julia's chicken, regardless of
her scorn, and prescribed mutton; called for champagne and made her drink
it and pout; and thus excited Mrs. Dodd's hopes that he was attending to
the case by degrees.
But after dinner, Julia, to escape medicine universal and particular,
turned to her mother, and dilated on treachery of her literary guide, the
_Criticaster._ "It said 'Odds and Ends' was a good novel to read by the
seaside. So I thought then oh! how different it must be from most books,
if you can sit by the glorious sea and even look at it. So I sent for it
directly, and, would you believe, it was an ignoble thing; all
flirtations and curates. The sea indeed! A pond would be fitter to read
it by; and one with a good many geese on."
"Was ever such simplicity!" said Mrs. Dodd. "Why, my dear, that phrase
about the sea does not _mean_ anything. I shall have you believing that
Mr. So-and-So, a novelist, can _'wither fashionable folly,'_ and that _'a
painful incident'_ to one shopkeeper has _'thrown a gloom'_ over a whole
market-town, and so on.
Pages:
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130