It would
be perfectly ridiculous to let me go down there imagining that this or
that underdone-griddle-cake-faced young woman was your lady-love. I
might make mistakes, and do more harm than good."
"Madam," I replied, "let us have done with this. I have never said one
word to the young lady in question of my feelings toward her, and it is
in the highest degree improper and unjust that she should be discussed
in connection with them. I have laid the matter before Mother Anastasia,
as she stands in position of parent to the young lady; but with no one
else can I possibly act, or even discuss the subject," and I bowed.
"I don't like this," she said, without noticing that I had taken leave
of her. "Mother Anastasia did not intend to leave here until to-morrow,
and she went away early this morning. She has some pressing business on
hand, and ten chances to one she has gone to fillip your young lady out
of your sight and hearing. Don't you see that it would not look at all
well for one of her sisters to marry, or even to receive the attentions
of a gentleman, immediately after she had left the institution?"
This suggestion, so like my own suspicions, greatly disturbed me.
"Are you in earnest," said I, "or is all this chaffer? What reasonable
interest can you take in me and my affairs?"
"I take no interest whatever," said she, "excepting that I have heard
you are both eccentric and respectable, and that I have found you
amusing, and in this class of people I am always interested.
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