What young lady would be like a cherry ?--such an uninteresting, common, charity-boy sort of fruit.

For my part, I always associate cherries with the image of a young gentleman in corduroys and a skeleton jacket, with one pocket full of marbles, and the other full of worms for fishing, with three-halfpence in the left paw, and two cherries on one stalk (Helena and Hermia) in the right." "How droll you are!" said Caroline, laughing.
"Much obliged to you, and don't envy your discrimination, 'Melancholy marks me for its own.' You ladies,--ah, yours is the life for gay spirits and light hearts; to us are left business and politics, law, physic, and murder, by way of professions; abuse, nicknamed fame; and the privilege of seeing how universal a thing, among the great and the wealthy, is that pleasant vice, beggary,--which privilege is proudly entitled 'patronage and power.' Are we the things to be gay,--'droll,' as you say?
Oh, no, all our spirits are forced, believe me.

Miss Cameron, did you ever know that wretched species of hysterical affection called 'forced spirits'?
Never, I am sure; your ingenuous smile, your laughing eyes, are the index to a happy and a sanguine heart." "And what of me ?" asked Caroline, quickly, and with a slight blush.
"You, Miss Merton?
Ah, I have not yet read your character,--a fair page, but an unknown letter.

You, however, have seen the world, and know that we must occasionally wear a mask." Lord Vargrave sighed as he spoke, and relapsed into sudden silence; then looking up, his eyes encountered Caroline's, which were fixed upon him.

Their gaze flattered him; Caroline turned away, and busied herself with a rose-bush.