He indulges _us_ in
our whims."
Warm partisan of immortal justice, when it was lucky enough to be backed
by her affections, Miss Vizard rose directly after dinner, and, with a
fine imitation of ardor, said she could lose no more time--she must go
and put on her bonnet. "You will come with me, Fanny?"
When I was a girl, or a boy--I forget which, it is so long ago--a young
lady thus invited by an affectionate friend used to do one of two things;
nine times out of ten she sacrificed her inclination, and went; the
tenth, she would make sweet, engaging excuses, and beg off. But the girls
of this day have invented "silent volition." When you ask them to do
anything they don't quite like, they look you in the face, bland but
full, and neither speak nor move. Miss Dover was a proficient in this
graceful form of refusal by dead silence, and resistance by placid
inertia. She just looked like the full moon in Zoe's face, and never
budged. Zoe, being also a girl of the day, needed no interpretation. "Oh,
very well," said she, "disobliging thing!"--with perfect good humor, mind
you.
Vizard, however, was not pleased.
"You go with her, Ned," said he.
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