Page:A strange, sad comedy (IA strangesadcomedy00seawiala).pdf/89

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A STRANGE, SAD COMEDY
77

suppose that any girl in her senses would take him in preference to Mr. Romaine or Sir Archibald Corbin is too wildly grotesque for anything. I 'll follow Mr. Romaine's example and say good-night." And off she went.

Sir Archy had begun to find Newport pleasanter day by day. He had wearied in the beginning of the adulation paid to his title and his money, and it soon came to be understood that he was not in the market, so to speak. He found the Farebrother girls pleasant and amiable, and showed them some attention. As he showed none whatever to any other of the cottage girls, nor did he go to any except to the Farebrothers' villa, the family were credited with having laid a deep scheme to monopolize him. The real state of the case was too simple to be understood by artificial people.

Then he had an agreeable sense of familiarity with Mrs. Chessingham and Miss Maywood. They were really well bred and well educated English gentlewomen. Ethel's aloneness had perhaps developed rather too sharply her aspirations toward an establishment of her own, but that is a not uncommon thing among women, and the terrible English