Depend upon it you will only get
yourself laughed at, and me too, if you preach about dancers'
petticoats."
"I don't want to preach to any body; and you know how much it fashes me
to contend with you."
"Don't say FASHES, say distresses, or annoys, not _fashes_, for heaven's
sake, my dear Lucy."
"Oh, dear, it was very stupid of me to forget it. That was one of the
first things you taught me, and it is a many days since I said it last;
but it is so strange to me to venture to differ with you, that I get
confused, and don't say any thing as right as I could do. Even now I
should like to ask, if modesty is a merit, whether nakedness ought to be
a show; but I'll say no more, for I dare say you won't make me go there
again."
"No, that will be the best way to settle it."
The plot of the Contrast is not, as the reader may perceive, one of
fashionable life: it has more of the romance of nature in its
composition: the characters are not the drawling bores that we find in
fashionable novels, though their affected freaks are occasionally
introduced to contrast with unsophisticated humility, and thus exhibit
the deformities of high life. The whole work is, however, light as
gossamer: we had almost said that a fly might read it through the
meshes, without endangering his patience or liberty.
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