Each lady said something she had
thought up to say, beginning, "Does it not seem--" or "Are we not forced
to conclude--"
I suspect that Miss Caroline was sleepy. Perhaps she was nettled by the
boredom she had been made to endure without just provocation; perhaps
the fashionable fumes of varnish had been toxic to her unaccustomed
senses. At any rate she now compromised herself regrettably.
Mrs. Westley Keyts had been thinking up something to say, something
choice that should yet be sufficiently vague not to incriminate her. It
had seemed that these requirements would be met if she said, in a tone
of easy patronage, "Mr. Wordsworth is certainly a very bright writer of
poetry, but as for me--give _me_ Shakspere!"
She had thought of saying "the Bard of Avon," a polished phrase coined
for his "Compendium" by the ingenious Mr. Gaskell; but, hearing her own
voice strangely break the silence, Mrs. Keyts became timid at the last
moment and let it go at "Shakspere."
"Oh, Shakspere--of _course_!" said most of the ladies at once, and those
not quick enough to utter it concertedly looked it almost reprovingly at
the speaker.
A silence fell, as if every one must have time to recover from this
trivial platitude.
Pages:
212
213
214
215
216
217
218
219
220
221
222
223
224
225
226
227
228
229
230
231
232
233
234
235
236