You look like an English nobleman, and you talk like any ordinary
young man about town."
"My dearest girl, would you have me a Sir Charles Grandison? The
English nobleman of your imagination is the gentleman who perambulates
the pages of Miss Burney's novels. The present species and the young
man about town are synonymous animals."
"There you are again! You always make me laugh; I cannot help that;
but I wish you would do yourself justice, nevertheless. You may not
know it, but if you would only put on a ruff and satin doublet and
hose and wig, and all the rest of it, you would look exactly like one
of the courtiers of the court of Queen Elizabeth. You are a perfect
type of the English aristocrat."
"My dear Lady Jane Grey, if you had been an American girl, you would
have said a perfect gentleman, and I should never have spoken to you
again. As a matter of fact, I always feel it a sort of sacrilege that
I do not address you in blank verse; only my attempts thereat are
so very bad. But it is never too late to mend. We will read Pope
together, Shakespeare, and all the rest of the old boys.
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