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A SHABBY GENTEEL STORY 65
ment of resistance at first. But the poor girl's modesty overcame
this, as well as her wish. Ought she to avoid him] Ought she
not to stifle any preference which she might feel towards him,
and act towards him with the same indifference which she would
show to any other person in a like situation ? Was not Mr. Fitch
to dine at table as usual, and had she refused him 1 So reasoned
she in her heart. Silly little cunning heart ! it knew that all
these reasons were lies, and that she should avoid the man; but
she was willing to accept of any pretext for meeting, and so made
a kind of compromise with her conscience. Dine he should ; but
Becky should dine too, and be a protector to her. Becky laughed
loudly at the idea of this, and took her place with huge delight.
It is needless to say a word about this dinner, as we have
already described a former meal ; suffice it to say, that the presence
of Brandon caused the painter to be excessively sulky and uncomfortable
; and so gave his rival, who was gay, triumphant, and at
his ease, a decided advantage over him. Nor did Brandon neglect
to use this to the utmost. When Fitch retired to his own apartments—not
jealous as yet, for the simple fellow believed every
word of Brandon's morning conversation with him—but vaguely
annoyed and disappointed, Brandon assailed him with all the force
of ridicule ; at all his manners, words, looks, he joked mercilessly ;
laughed at his low birth (Miss Gann, be it remembered, had been
taught to pique herself upon her own family), and invented a series
of stories concerning his past life which made the ladies—for Becky,
being in the parlour, must be considered as such—conceive the
greatest contempt and pity for the poor painter.
After this, Mr. Brandon would expatiate with much eloquence
upon his own superior attractions and qualities. He talked of his
cousin, Lord So-and-so, with the easiest air imaginable; told
Caroline what princesses he had danced with at foreign courts;
frightened her with accounts of dreadful duels he had fought ; in
a word, "posed" before her as a hero of the most sublime kind.
How the poor little thing drank in all his tales ; and how she and
Becky (for they now occupied the same bedroom) talked over them
at night !
Miss Caroline, as Mr. Fitch has already stated, had in her
possession, like almost every young lady in England, a little square
book called an album, containing prints from annuals; hideous
designs of flowers; old pictures of faded fashions, cut out and
pasted into the leaves; and small scraps of verses selected from
Byron, Landon, or Mrs. Hemans; and written out in the girlish
hand of the owner of the book. Brandon looked over this work
with a good deal of curiosity—for he contended, always, that a
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