“ Loving! ” cried I, as scornfully as I could utter the word. “ Loving! Did anybody ever hear the like! I might just as well talk of loving the miller who comes once a year to buy our corn. Pretty loving, indeed! and both times together you have seen Linton hardly four hours in your life! Now here is the babyish trash. I’m going with it to the library; and we’ll see what your father says to such loving .”

She sprang at her precious epistles, but I held them above my head; and then she poured out further frantic entreaties that I would burn them⁠—do anything rather than show them. And being really fully as much inclined to laugh as scold⁠—for I esteemed it all girlish vanity⁠—I at length relented in a measure, and asked⁠—“If I consent to burn them, will you promise faithfully neither to send nor receive a letter again, nor a book (for I perceive you have sent him books), nor locks of hair, nor rings, nor playthings?”