As for his personal appearance, you saw him, did you not ?" I thought surely that piece of irony would not fail, but it did, and I have seldom since attempted to use that form of humor.
"Yes--oh, yes, I saw him for a moment." "But I will not present him to you, Dorothy, however much you may wish to meet him," I said positively.
"It is almost an insult, Cousin Malcolm, for you to say that I wish to meet him," she answered in well-feigned indignation.
The French blood in my veins moved me to shrug my shoulders.

I could do nothing else.

With all my knowledge of womankind this girl had sent me to sea.
But what shall we say of Dorothy's conduct?
I fancy I can hear you mutter, "This Dorothy Vernon must have been a bold, immodest, brazen girl." Nothing of the sort.

Dare you of the cold blood--if perchance there be any with that curse in their veins who read these lines--dare you, I say, lift your voice against the blessed heat in others which is but a greater, stronger, warmer spark of God's own soul than you possess or than you can comprehend?
"Evil often comes of it," I hear you say.

That I freely admit; and evil comes from eating too much bread, and from hearing too much preaching.