"Mercy! mercy! have mercy, I entreat you," cried Maria, averting her face, "or I shall soon be as red as the cook. But I cannot, I will not consent to hear my friend traduced in such a manner; so far from wanting feeling, Charlotte Henley is all heart. To use your own language," she added, turning her eyes towards him archly, "it is for her heart that I most love her."
"You deceive yourself. Early attachment, and long association, and your own generous, warm feelings deceive you. She is accustomed to show gentle and kind civilities to all around her, and you mistake habit for affection."
"She is accustomed to do all that, I own; but to do it in a manner that adds to its value by her simple unaffected feelings. She is not, I must acknowledge, like certain people of my acquaintance, a bundle of tinder to take fire at every spark that approaches, but she loves all she should love, and I fear she loves one too well that she should not love."
"Love one that she should not love?" cried Delafield: "what, is her heart then engaged to another? Is it possible that Miss Henley, the cold, prudish Miss Henley, can indulge an improper attachment after all?"
"Mr. Delafield," said Miss Osgood, gravely, "I am not apt to betray what I ought to conceal, although I am the giddy creature that I seem. But I have spoken unguardedly, and must explain: in the first place, I would not have you suppose that Charlotte Henley and I talk of our hearts and our lovers to each other, like two girls at a boarding school. If I know that she has such a thing as a heart at all, it is not from herself, but from my own observation; and as for lovers, though she may have had dozens for any thing I know, to me they are absolutely strangers.--Don't interrupt _me_, I am not begging one. After this explanation I will say, trusting, Delafield entirely in your honour, which I do believe you to possess in a high--"
"You may--you may," interrupted the young man eagerly: "I will never betray your confidence--you might trust yourself to my honour and good faith--"
"I wish you would not be bringing yourself and myself constantly into the conversation," said the lady, compressing her lips to conceal a smile; "we are talking of Charlotte Henley, and of her only. She was brought up in the daily habit of seeing much of George Morton, who, I believe, even you will own has a heart, for it will cost him his life."