"
"Then you must and shall go to this one. It is really a pity that you
should have enraged Lady Juliana so much by that unfortunate
church-going; but for that, I think she might have been managed; and even
now, I should not despair, if you would, like a good girl, beg pardon
for what is past, and promise never to do so any more."
"Impossible!" replied Mary. "You surely cannot be serious in
supposing I would barter a positive duty for a trifling amusement?"
"Oh, hang duties! they are odious things. And as for your amiable,
dutiful, virtuous Goody Two-Shoes characters, I detest them. They never
would go down with me, even in the nursery, with all he attractions of a
gold watch and coach and six. They were ever my abhorrence, as every
species of canting and hypocrisy still is---"
Then struck with a sense of her own violence and impetuosity, contrasted
with her cousin's meek unreproving manner, Lady Emily threw her arms
round her, begging pardon, and assuring her she did not mean her.
"If you had," said Mary, returning her embrace, "you would only have told
me what I am in some respects. Dull and childish, I know I am; for I am
not the same creature I was at Lochmarlie"--and a tear trembled in her
eye as she spoke--"and troublesome, I am sure, you have found me."
"No, no!" eagerly interrupted Lady Emily; "you are the reverse of
all that.
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