Rainsforth's chest.
Tea was announced. Sophy held back in the general move, Ulick made a
step nearer, their eyes met, and if ever eyes spoke, hers ordered him
to keep his distance, while he glanced affront for affront, bowed and
stepped back.
Sophy sat by Miss Jane Northover, and endeavoured to make her talk.
Anything would have been better than the echoes of the sprightliness
at the lower end of the table, where Ulick was talking what he would
have called blarney to Miss Susan Northover and Miss Mary Anne
Higgins, both at once, till he excited them into a perpetual giggle.
Mr. Dusautoy was delighted, and evidently thought this brilliant
success; Mrs. Dusautoy was less at her ease--the mirth was less sober
and more exclusive than she had intended; and Sophy, finding nothing
could be made of Miss Jane, turned round to her other neighbour, Mr.
Hope, and asked his opinion of the Whewell and Brewster controversy
on the Plurality of Worlds.
Mr. Hope had rather a good opinion of Miss Sophia, and as she had
never molested him, could talk to her, so he straightway became
engrossed in the logical and theological aspects of the theory; and
Mrs. Dusautoy could hardly suppress her smile at this unconscious
ponderous attempt at a counter flirtation, with Saturn and Jupiter as
weapons for light skirmishing.
Ulick received the invitation to dinner, and did not accept it. He
said he had an engagement--Albinia wondered what it could be, and had
reason afterwards to think that he had the silent young apothecary to
a Christmas dinner in his own rooms--an act of charity at least, if
not of forgiveness.
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