"
"You are not very romantic, I perceive, Mr. Wallingford," Emily
answered, and I thought a little reproachfully. "Now, I own that to
my taste, I could be happy anywhere--here, as well as in London,
surrounded by my nearest and dearest friends."
"Surrounded! Ay, that would be a very different matter. Let me have
your father, yourself, honest Marble, good Mr. Hardinge, Rupert, dear,
dear Grace, and Lucy, with Neb and some others of my own blacks, and I
should ask no better home. The island is only in twenty, has plenty of
shade some delicious fruits, and Would be easily tilled--one might do
here, I acknowledge, and it would be pleasant to found a colony."
"And who are all these people you love so well, Mr. Wallingford, that
their presence would make a desert island pleasant?"
"In the first place, Major Merton is a half-pay officer in the British
service, who has been appointed to some civil station in India"--I
answered, gallantly. "He is a respectable, agreeable, well-informed
gentleman, a little turned of fifty, who might act as Judge and
Chancellor. Then he has a daughter--"
"I know more of her and her bad qualities than you do yourself,
_Sire_--but who are Rupert, and Grace, and Lucy--_dear,
dear_ Grace, especially?"
"Dear, _dearest_ Grace, Madam, is my sister--my _only_
sister--all the sister I ever can have, either by marriage, or any
other means, and sisters are usually _dear_ to young men, I
believe.
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