Page:The principal girl (IA principalgirl00snai).pdf/123

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take for you on a lease, in order that you may both be near them. Shelmerdine, we don't know when we have been so ashamed of an alumnus of ours. If you haven't enough character, sir, to tackle the very ordinary job of driving a young woman on the curb—as every young woman ought to be driven for her soul's welfare at the beginning—you are a miserable shirker, sir, and unworthy of your liberal nurture.

Sir, in that event, we wash our hands of you; and you are free to form an alliance with this underbred Bohemian—it is not our custom to mince our language when our emotions are deeply stirred! You will bring down the gray hairs of your admirable parents in sorrow to the grave; your portrait will receive the freedom of the gutter press; you will never be asked to shoot at High Cliff; you will bring tragedy into your own life and into the life of others—in fact, sir, and in a word—one understood these infernal safety-razors were guaranteed not to cut gashes into one's neck!

Little recked Cinderella of the reason why the heir to the barony had to appear at tea-time on Friday done up in court plaster. He was also strangely pensive and embarrassed.

She was as gay and as charming as usual; and she had just been engaged to create the title rôle in Mr. Wingrove's brilliant new play at the Millennium, that