That was during the trial;
afterwards attainment. Was there no long strain and steady struggle
there?
Una's enthusiasm infects us; and very _apropos_ to all this do we hear
Mr. Reade's Jacintha remark,--
"We are good creatures, but we don't trouble our heads with
justice; it is a word you shall never hear a woman use, unless she
happens to be doing some monstrous injustice at the very moment."
And with the best-natured contempt in the world, Dr. Sampson exclaims,--
"What! go t' a wumman for the truth, when I can go t' infallible
inference?"
Even Lucy Fountain saw many young ladies healed of many young
enthusiasms by a wedding-ring,--but a wittier woman has said it better,
Una declares, in asserting that a married woman's name is her epitaph.
If, however, Mr. Reade's opinion of womankind is at any time
justifiable, we must bring Una to witness that it is so in the following
instance:--
"Realize the situation, and the strange incongruity between the
senses and the mind in these poor fellows! The day had ripened its
beauty; beneath a purple heaven shone, sparkled, and laughed a
blue sea, in whose waves the tropical sun seemed to have fused his
beams; and beneath that fair, sinless, peaceful sky, wafted by a
balmy breeze over those smiling, transparent, golden waves, a
bloodthirsty pirate bore down on them with a crew of human tigers;
and a lady babble babble babble babble babble babbled in their
quivering ears!"
We have heard numberless inquiries as to Mr.
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