Page:The Semi-detached House.djvu/197

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THE SEMI-DETACHED HOUSE.
189

some would flirt with the cadets, most of them were affected and all of them sea-sick. "Now my girls are nice, natural, good-humoured girls, they would not give that," (whatever that is) "for the attentions of a whole regiment of those silly boys; and the only time I gave them a trip in the 'Alacrity,' they were as steady on their pins as if they had been at sea all their lives." Janet was the shorter of the two, so at every return from his voyages he found out she had grown considerably, and as Rose was pale, he dwelt much on her blooming looks. Now that they burst upon him dressed, thanks to Madame Justine's supervision, in very becoming costumes, excited by the amusements of the day, and flushed with the delight of seeing him—he looked at them with the profoundest admiration, and when they left the room to take off their finery, he turned to his wife and said, "Well, old lady, those are not bad looking girls, by any means. Why, the Miss Wallaces, who went out to Calcutta this last time, and were thought great beau-