There are none so very pretty, none so very pleasing." "Are you very sure ?" asked the young man, rising and throwing away his cigar-end.
"Upon my word," cried Cecilia, "one would suppose I wished to keep you for myself.

Of course I am sure! But as the penalty of your insinuations, I shall invite the plainest and prosiest damsel that can be found, and leave you alone with her." Rowland smiled.

"Even against her," he said, "I should be sorry to conclude until I had given her my respectful attention." This little profession of ideal chivalry (which closed the conversation) was not quite so fanciful on Mallet's lips as it would have been on those of many another man; as a rapid glance at his antecedents may help to make the reader perceive.

His life had been a singular mixture of the rough and the smooth.

He had sprung from a rigid Puritan stock, and had been brought up to think much more intently of the duties of this life than of its privileges and pleasures.