Page:What will he do with it.djvu/365

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WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT?
355

be seen that once model member, Sir Jasper Stollhead. Grim dyspepsia seizing on him at last, "relaxation from his duties "becomes the adequate punishment for all his sins. Solitary he rides, and, communing with himself, yawns at every second. Upon chairs, beneficently located under the trees toward the north side of the walk, are interspersed small knots and coteries in repose. There, you might see the Ladies Prymme, still the Ladies Prymme—Janet and Wilhelmina; Janet has grown fat, Wilhelmina thin. But thin or fat, they are no less Prymmes. They do not lack male attendants; they are girls of high fashion, with whom young men think it a distinction to be talking; of high principle, too, and high pretensions (unhappily for themselves they are coheiresses)^ by whom young men under the rank of earls need not fear to be artfully entrapped into "honorable intentions." They coquet majestically, but they never flirt; they exact devotion, but the}/ do not ask in each victim a sacrifice on the horns of the altar; they will never give their hands where they do not give their hearts; and being ever afraid that they are courted for their money, they will never give their hearts save to wooers who have much more money than themselves. Many young men stop to do passing homage to the Ladies Prymme; some linger to converse—safe young men, they are all younger sons. Farther on. Lady Frost and Mr. Crampe the wit sit amicably side by side, pecking at each other with sarcastic beaks; occasionally desisting, to fasten nip and claw upon that common enemy, the passing friend! The Slowes, a numerous family, but taciturn, sit by themselves— bowed to much; accosted rarely.

Note that man of good presence, somewhere about thirty, or a year or two more, who, recognized by most of the loungers, seems not at home in the lounge. He has passed by the various coteries just described, made his obeisance to the Ladies Prymme, received an icy epigram from. Lady Frost, and a laconic sneer from Mr. Crampe, and exchanged silent bows with seven silent Slowes. He has wandered on, looking high m the air, but still looking for some one, not in the air, and, evidently disappointed in his search, comes to a full stop at length, takes off his hat, wipes his brow, utters a petulant " Prr—r—pshaw!" and seeing, a little in the background, the chairless shade of a thin, emaciated, dusty tree, thither he retires, and seats himself with as little care whether there to seat himself be the right thing in the right place, as if in the honey-suckle arbor of a village inn. "It serves me right," said he, to himself, " a precocious villain bursts in upon me, breaks my day, makes an appointment to