Page:Guy Mannering Vol 1.djvu/283

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GUY MANNERING.
273

—I delight to make him scramble to the top of eminences and to the foot of waterfalls, and am obliged in return to admire his turnips, his lucerne, and his timothy grass. He thinks me, I fancy, a simple romantic Miss, with some—(the word will be out) beauty, and some good nature; and I hold that the gentleman has good taste for the female outside, and do not expect he should comprehend my sentiments farther. So he rallies, hands, and hobbles, (for the dear creature has got the gout too,) and tells old stories of high life, of which he has seen a great deal, and I listen, and smile, and look as pretty and as pleasant as I can, and we do very well.

"But, alas! my dearest Matilda, how would time pass away, even in this paradise of romance, tenanted as it is by a pair assorting so ill with the scenes around them, were it not for your fidelity in replying to my uninteresting details? Pray do not fail to write three times a-week at least—you can be at no loss what to say."

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