Mrs. Sylvester
Love is more pleasant than marriage, for the same reason that romances are more amusing than history.
“He draweth out the thread of his verbosity, finer than the staple of his argument.”
Young Mandeville having finished his story, looked at his uncle. He found him sitting in an attitude of extreme absorption, his right arm stretched before him on the table, his face bent thoughtfully downwards and clouded with that deep melancholy that seemed its most natural expression, “He has not heard me,” was the young man’s first mortifying reflection. But catching his uncle’s eye which at that moment raised itself, he perceived he was mistaken and that he had rather been listened to only too well.
“You must forgive me if I have seemed to rhapsodize,” the young man stammered. “You were so quiet I half forgot I had a listener and went on much as I would if I had been thinking aloud.”
His uncle smiled and throwing off the weight of his reflections whatever they might be, arose and began pacing the floor. “I see you are past surgery,” quoth he, “any wisdom of mine would be only thrown away.”
Young Mandeville was hurt. He had expected some token of approval on his uncle’s part, or at least some betrayal of sympathy. His looks expressed his disappointment.
“You expected to convert me by this story,” continued the elder, pausing with a certain regret before his nephew; “nothing could convert