Page:Shirley (1849 Volume 1).djvu/241

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BRIARMAINS.
229

senior took out a morocco-covered book, and deliberately wrote therein.) Ten years hence, Martin, if thou and I be both alive at that day, I'll remind thee of that speech."

"I'll say the same then: I mean always to hate women; they're such dolls: they do nothing but dress themselves finely, and go swimming about to be admired. I'll never marry: I'll be a bachelor."

"Stick to it! stick to it! Hesther (addressing his wife) I was like him when I was his age, a regular misogamist; and, behold! by the time I was three-and-twenty,—being then a tourist in France and Italy, and the Lord knows where!—I curled my hair every night before I went to bed, and wore a ring i' my ear, and would have worn one i' my nose if it had been the fashion—and all that I might make mysel' pleasing and charming to the ladies. Martin will do the like."

"Will I? Never! I've more sense. What a Guy you were, father! As to dressing, I make this vow: I'll never dress more finely than as you see me at present. Mr. Moore, I'm clad in blue cloth from top to toe, and they laugh at me, and call me sailor at the grammar-school. I laugh louder at them, and say they are all magpies and parrots, with their coats one colour, and their waistcoats another, and their trousers a third. I'll always wear blue cloth, and nothing but blue cloth: it is beneath a human