But Mrs. Dodd, standing there quivering with maternal anxiety, and hot
with shame, could not but doubt the sincerity of that graceful
resistance. If she had been quite in earnest, Julia had fire enough in
her to box the little wretch's ears. She ceased even to doubt, when she
saw that her daughter's opposition ended in his getting hold of two hands
instead of one, and devouring them with kisses, while Julia still drew
her head and neck away, but the rest of her supple frame seemed to yield
and incline, and draw softly towards her besieger by some irresistible
spell.
"I can bear no more!" gasped Mrs. Dodd aloud, and turned to hasten and
part them; but even as she curved her stately neck to go, she caught the
lovers' parting; and a very pretty one too, if she could but have looked
at it, as these things ought always to be looked at: artistically.
Julia's head and lovely throat, unable to draw the rest of her away,
compromised: they turned, declined, drooped, and rested one half moment
on her captor's shoulder, like a settling dove: the next, she scudded
from him, and made for the house alone.
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