"How little real love," said Maynard, "there is in the world!—how many other baser feelings usurp its name!"
"They may," cried Lavinia, "be generally classed under two heads,—idleness and vanity. There are more love affairs originating in the want of something to do, than from any other motive. The lover and the physician are each popular from the same cause—we talk to them of nothing but ourselves; I dare say that was the origin of confession—egotism, under the fine name of religion."
"Sir George Kingston is very egotistical," said Walter; "I observe that, let the topic be what it will, it winds round to himself!"
"You would not wonder," returned Lavinia, "if you could but know the world of flattery which he contrives to obtain. Believe me, that a very vain man cannot do better than devote himself to our sex; nowhere else will he have his vanity so soothed, and so fed."
"But," interrupted Walter, "it is man's part to flatter women!"
