' (Enter
Rosey.) Rosey, darling! I have been telling Mr. Pendennis what a
naughty, naughty child you were yesterday, and how you read a book which
I told you you shouldn't read; for it is a very wicked book; and though
it contains some sad sad truths, it is a great deal too misanthropic (is
that the right word? I'm a poor soldier's wife, and no scholar, you
know), and a great deal too bitter; and though the reviews praise it, and
the clever people--we are poor simple country people--we won't praise it.
Sing, dearest, that little song" (profuse kisses to Rosey), "that pretty
thing that Mr. Pendennis likes."
"I am sure that I will sing anything that Mr. Pendennis likes," says
Rosey, with her candid bright eyes--and she goes to the piano and warbles
"Batti, Batti," with her sweet fresh artless voice.
More caresses follow. Mamma is in a rapture. How pretty they look--the
mother and daughter--two lilies twining together! The necessity of an
entertainment at the Temple-lunch from Dick's (as before mentioned),
dessert from Partington's, Sibwright's spoons, his boy to aid ours, nay,
Sib himself, and his rooms, which are so much more elegant than ours, and
where there is a piano and guitar: all these thoughts pass in rapid and
brilliant combination in the pleasant Mr.
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