The things we do!

Who has not overheard a simple couple of girls, or of
lovers possibly, pouring out their little hearts, laughing at their own
little jokes, prattling and prattling away unceasingly, until mamma
appears with her awful didactic countenance, or the governess with her
dry moralities, and the colloquy straightway ceases, the laughter stops,
the chirp of the harmless little birds is hushed. Lady Clara being of a
timid nature, stood in as much awe of Ethel as of her father and mother;
whereas her next sister, a brisk young creature of seventeen, who was of
the order of romps or tomboys, was by no means afraid of Miss Newcome,
and indeed a much greater favourite with her than her placid elder
sister.
Young ladies may have been crossed in love, and have had their
sufferings, their frantic moments of grief and tears, their wakeful
nights, and so forth; but it is only in very sentimental novels that
people occupy themselves perpetually with that passion: and, I believe,
what are called broken hearts are very rare articles indeed.


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