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ottoman. Mrs G is about the silliest and most ignorant
woman � for the station she has accidentally got into � that
I know. She drops her H�s to a three-cockney extent and
� laments it! She talks of men who have fallen in love with
her, alternately professing that she�s very sorry and exalting
in the silliest manner. She wants to learn French, to go to
Paris, to read the History of France � in order to discomfit in
argument, a French-musical teacher who boards in the house
is in love with her, and has the national Napoleonic Anglo-
phobia!) �Ah! Mr Gunn, you said very unkind things
about me, but I always liked you!� quoth she. Her good
qualities are entirely physical. She has a surface jollity of
disposition, don�t bear malice � I have said the most infernal
things to her, and I know she�s hated me like the devil at
times � and she has been handsome and is good looking. I
can well fancy her, ten or fifteen years ago, she might have
fired the heart and brain of some impassioned young man �
and also how meanly, how basely, how foolishly and how
cruelly she�d use her power. / Well, we got along in
a very lively manner, she being alternately teazed and
pleased. I wanted to leave. No, I must stop till he
goes� � he being Miss Petit�s bean � �and then she�d make
me a whiskey punch.� This was said quite loud enough for
the man to have heard, if he hadn�t been engrossed in talking
to Miss Lizzie. He was a long time going, but rose, at
I suppose about 10 1/2 and directly the room door closed upon
him, she � Mrs Gouverneur had a little skillet on the fire
for heating water. A demi-john was produced, Mrs G ex-
plaining that there wasn�t enough whiskey for two, or she