"
She looked at me a moment--her face was sweet and gay. "Do YOU
burn without reading too?"--in answer to which I assured her that
if she'd trust me with her repository I'd see that Mr. Paraday
should write his name in it.
She considered a little. "That's very well, but it wouldn't make
me see him."
"Do you want very much to see him?" It seemed ungracious to
catechise so charming a creature, but somehow I had never yet taken
my duty to the great author so seriously.
"Enough to have come from America for the purpose."
I stared. "All alone?"
"I don't see that that's exactly your business, but if it will make
me more seductive I'll confess that I'm quite by myself. I had to
come alone or not come at all."
She was interesting; I could imagine she had lost parents, natural
protectors--could conceive even she had inherited money. I was at
a pass of my own fortunes when keeping hansoms at doors seemed to
me pure swagger. As a trick of this bold and sensitive girl,
however, it became romantic--a part of the general romance of her
freedom, her errand, her innocence. The confidence of young
Americans was notorious, and I speedily arrived at a conviction
that no impulse could have been more generous than the impulse that
had operated here.
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