Puddock drank tea at Belmont--nectar in Olympus--that evening. Was ever
lieutenant so devoutly romantic? He had grown more fanatical and abject
in his worship. He spoke less, and lisped in very low tones. He sighed
often, and sometimes mightily; and ogled unhappily, and smiled
lackadaisically. The beautiful damsel was, in her high, cold way, kind
to the guest, and employed him about the room on little commissions, and
listened to his speeches without hearing them, and rewarded them now and
then with the gleam of a smile, which made his gallant little heart
flutter up to his solitaire, and his honest powdered head giddy.
'I marvel, brother,' ejaculated Aunt Becky, suddenly, appearing in the
parlour, where the general had made himself comfortable over his novel,
and opening her address with a smart stamp on the floor. The veteran's
heart made a little jump, and he looked up over his gold spectacles.
'I marvel, brother, what you can mean, desire, or intend, by all this
ogling, sighing, and love-making; 'tis surely a strange way of
forwarding Mr. Dangerfield's affair.'
He might have blustered a little, as he sometimes did, for she had
startled him, and her manner was irritating; but she had caught him in a
sentimental passage between Lovelace and Miss Harlowe, which always
moved him--and he showed no fight at all; but his innocent little light
blue eyes looked up wonderingly and quite gently at her.
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