What the deuce does the boy want with a wife at all?" And Rosey's song
being by this time finished, Warrington went up with a blushing face and
absolutely paid a compliment to Miss Mackenzie--an almost unheard-of
effort on George's part.
"I wonder whether it is every young fellow's lot," quoth George, as we
trudged home together, "to pawn his heart away to some girl that's not
worth the winning? Psha! it's all mad rubbish this sentiment. The women
ought not to be allowed to interfere with us: married if a man must be, a
suitable wife should be portioned out to him, and there an end of it. Why
doesn't the young man marry this girl, and get back to his business and
paint his pictures? Because his father wishes it--and the old Nabob
yonder, who seems a kindly-disposed, easy-going, old heathen philosopher.
Here's a pretty little girl: money I suppose in sufficiency--everything
satisfactory, except, I grant you, the campaigner. The lad might daub his
canvases, christen a child a year, and be as happy as any young donkey
that browses on this common of ours--but he must go and heehaw after a
zebra forsooth! a lusus naturae is she! I never spoke to a woman of
fashion, thank my stars--I don't know the nature of the beast; and since
I went to our race-balls, as a boy, scarcely ever saw one; as I don't
frequent operas and parties in London like you young flunkeys of the
aristocracy.
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