"Ay, a live dean--didn't you see the cloven foot sticking out from under
his shoe-buckle? What news for your mother! What will the ghosts of your
grandfathers to the seventh generation say to this, Alton? Colloquing in
Pagan picture galleries with shovel-hatted Philistines! And that's not the
worst, Alton," he ran on. "Those daughters of Moab--those daughters of
Moab--."
"Hold your tongue," I said, almost crying with vexation.
"Look there, if you want to save your good temper. There, she is looking
back again--not at poor me, though. What a lovely girl she is!--and a real
lady--_l'air noble_--the real genuine grit, as Sam Slick says, and no
mistake. By Jove, what a face! what hands! what feet! what a figure--in
spite of crinolines and all abominations! And didn't she know it? And
didn't she know that you knew it too?" And he ran on descanting coarsely on
beauties which I dared not even have profaned by naming, in a way that made
me, I knew not why, mad with jealousy and indignation. She seemed mine
alone in all the world. What right had any other human being, above all,
he, to dare to mention her? I turned again to my St.
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