My eldest
cousin Mary (where is there a name like Mary?) now approached; she and I
were old friends, and many a junketing we used to have in my father's
house during the holydays, when she was a boarding--school girl in
England. My hardihood and self--possession returned, under the double
gratification of seeing her, and the certainty that my blushes (for my
cheeks were glowing like hot iron) could not have been observed in the
subdued green light that pervaded the room.--"Well, Tom, since you are no
longer dazzled, and see us all now, you had better get up, hadn't you--you
see mamma is waiting there to embrace you?"
"Why, I think myself I had better;--but when I broached--to so suddenly,
I split my lower canvass, Mary, and I cannot budge until your mother lends
me a petticoat."
"A what? you are crazy, Tom"
"Not a whit, not a whit, why I have split my--ahem. This is speaking
plain, an't it?"
Away tripped the sylph--like girl, and in a twinkling reappeared with the
desired garment, which in a convulsion of laughter she slipped over my
head as I sat on the floor; and having fastened it properly round my
waist, I rose and paid my respects to my warm hearted relations. But that
petticoat--it could not have been the old woman's, there could have been
no such virtue in an old woman's petticoat; no, no, it must either have
been a charmed garment, or--Mary's own; for from that hour I was a lost
man, and the devoted slave of her large black eyes, and high pale
forehead.
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