He suffered pangs
unknown to him; his eyes became dim; and hardly knowing what he saw
or said, he pursued the lesson with increased rapidity.
Finding that his malice had taken effect, with a careless air the
malicious puppy threw his clumsy limbs on the sofa, which Miss Dundas
had just quitted to seat herself nearer the window, and cried out, as
in a voice of sudden recollection:
"By the bye, that Miss Mary Beaufort, when she chooses to be sincere,
is a staunch little Queen Bess."
"You may as well tell me," replied Miss Dundas, with a deriding curl
of her lip, "that she is the Empress of Russia."
"I beg your pardon!" cried he, and raising his voice to be better
heard, "I do not mean in the way of learning. But I will prove in a
moment her creditable high-mightiness in these presumptuous times,
though a silly love of popularity induces her to affect now and then
a humble guise to some people beneath her. When she gave me this
gewgaw," added he, flourishing the purse in his hand, "she told me a
pretty tissue about a fair friend of hers, whose music-master,
mistaking some condescension on her part, had dared to press her
snowy fingers while directing them towards a tender chord on her
harp. You have no notion how the gentle Beaufort's blue eyes blazed
up while relating poor Tweedledum's presumption!"
"I can have a notion of anything these boasted meek young ladies do
when thrown off their guard," haughtily returned his contemptuous
auditress, "after Miss Beaufort's violent sally of impertinence to
you last night.
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