An enfant gate is always odious to sensible people. Now, if you
were to try and spoil me," expanding herself until she looked twice
her size, "I should only bloom out into fresh beauty--approbation,
commendation, blindfold admiration would be meat and drink to me. I
have the digestion of a young ostrich," continued Elizabeth blandly-
-"nothing would be too difficult for me to swallow. As for satiety,
my dear creature, you need never expect to hear me call out, 'Eheu,
jain satis.'"
"Dear Betty, how you do talk," Dinah's usual formula; "and how I do
love to hear you," she inwardly added. "But it is very late, and we
shall have a tiring day to-morrow."
Dinah spoke in her cheery way, but when she was in her own room her
sweet face grew pensive and a little sad. Was there not an element
of truth under Elizabeth's jokes? Did she not make an idol of her
young brother? Was she altogether reasonable on the subject?
"If I am weak, I trust such weakness will be forgiven me," she
whispered as she stood in the perfumed darkness, with a wandering
summer wind playing refreshingly round her, and tears from some
hidden fount of sadness stole down her cheeks.
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