Fabian again.
Mrs. Ulrica uplifted her reproachful eyes to Heaven. "He asks who! he
has not even observed it!"
"No, my dear wife, I have not."
"And yet he has this entire day--," she turned her face aside, feigning
to conceal a blush.
"To-day! Why we have had no gentlemen guests to-day, except the pastor's
assistant who came with the young ladies, and took his departure before
they did."
"No gentlemen guests! As if he, the accomplished scholar, and
entertaining gentleman, was nobody! and it was nothing that--"
"Well, what further?"
"That he, carried away by those charms, that you have so long observed
with indifference, should become deeply smitten with me."
"What! Do you think he entertains a secret affection for you?"
"Affection, I will not say affection; but passion, which word your dull
brain cannot comprehend, you virtuous and modest Joseph!" the lady
laughed at her own joke, and then continued, "I am not certain whether I
had better tell the young man that I have discovered his hope; but I
shall be forced to forbid his visiting me, which will be the same as
telling the whole world how this delicate affair stands.
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