And then a whole cloud-world of love, freedom, fame, simple,
graceful country luxury steamed up across my brain, to end--not, like the
man's in the "Arabian Nights," in my kicking over the tray of China, which
formed the base-point of my inverted pyramid of hope--but in my finding the
contents of my plate deposited in my lap, while I was gazing fixedly at
Lillian.
I must say for myself, though, that such accidents happened seldom; whether
it was bashfulness, or the tact which generally, I believe, accompanies
a weak and nervous body, and an active mind; or whether it was that I
possessed enough relationship to the monkey-tribe to make me a first-rate
mimic, I used to get tolerably well through on these occasions, by acting
on the golden rule of never doing anything which I had not seen some one
else do first--a rule which never brought me into any greater scrape than
swallowing something intolerably hot, sour, and nasty (whereof I never
discovered the name), because I had seen the dean do so a moment before.
But one thing struck me through the whole of this conversation--the way in
which the new-married Lady Ellerton was spoken of, as aiding, encouraging,
originating--a helpmeet, if not an oracular guide, for her husband--in all
these noble plans.
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