is to practise an _etude_ of Schumann's in nine flats, and the next is
to realize that a man who has been in love with you has recovered for
keeps?"

"--It must not be imagined, however, that Miss Hamlyn is untruthful,
for when driven by impertinences into a corner she conceals her real
opinion by voicing it quite honestly as if she were joking. Thereupon
you credit her with the employment of irony and the possession of
every imaginable and super-angelical characteristic--"

"Unless we come to a better understanding," Miss Hamlyn crisply began,
"we had better stop right here before we come to a worse--"

"--Miss Hamlyn, in a word, is possessed of no insufferable virtues and
of many endearing faults; and in common with the rest of humanity, she
regards her disapproval of any proceeding as clear proof of its
impropriety." This was largely apropos of a fire-new debate concerning
the deleterious effects of cigarette-smoking; and when I had made an
end, and doggedly lighted another one of them, Bettie said nothing....
She minded chiefly that one of us should have thought of the other
without bias. She said it was not fair. And I know now that she was
right.

But of Bettie Hamlyn, for reasons you may learn hereafter if you so
elect, I honestly prefer to write not at all. Four years, in fine, we
spent to every purpose together, and they were very happy years. To
record them would be desecration.


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