"
"You are too severe," returned Juliet. "We are apt to forget during the
excitement of the moment the cruelty we inflict. I read old Izaak Walton
when a child. He made me mistress of the whole art of angling. It is
such a quiet contemplative amusement. The clear stream, the balmy air,
the warbling of happy birds, the fragrant hedge-rows and flowery banks,
by which you are surrounded, make you alive to the most pleasing
impressions: and amidst sights and sounds of beauty, you never reflect
that you are acting the part of the destroyer. I have given up the
gentle craft; but I still think it a strangely-fascinating sport."
"I should be sorry to see you so engaged," said Anthony. "I never could
bear to witness so soft a hand employed in taking away life."
"You, too, have learned the art of flattery," said Juliet,
reproachfully. "When will your sex, in speaking to ours, learn to
confine themselves to simple truth?"
"When the education of woman is conducted with less art, and they rise
superior to the meanness of being pleased with falsehood. What I said
just now was but the simple truth. I admit that it was said to please,
and I should, indeed, be grieved, if I thought that I could possibly
have given offence."
He looked so serious and anxious, that Juliet burst into a merry laugh.
"A very heinous crime, indeed, and deserving a very severe punishment!
What shall it be?"
"Another lecture from those lips.
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