So now, what do you think of that?"
"Well, really I am very sorry for you, poor Miss Longfield'" I said
with an effort to let my sympathy overcome my burning desire to laugh
outright; "you have been very unfortunate indeed, to have contracted
so many diseases at once."
"Oh my constitution has always been weak," she sighed; "I take some
twenty different medicines, I believe," she added, as if she were
trying to frighten me out of the room, "you'd hardly believe it, I
know, you are so healthy."
Here we were interrupted by Mrs. Longfield's plaintive voice reminding
her invalid daughter that she had been sitting "to one side too long,"
and would "excite her spinal inflammation" if she did not "straighten
up against the cushions of her chair."
Miss Longfield sighed peevishly, as she fell back in languid obedience
to this solicitous injunction; she was constantly exposing herself
thus rashly to the mercy of her chronic complaints. Shortly after
this, dinner was announced, and we were mutually delighted, I expect,
to find the latest turn of our conversation, which threatened to be
flat and uninteresting, thus brought to a happy, though abrupt
termination.
As soon after dinner as manners would allow me to leave, I bade good
evening to my amiable hostesses, who were profuse in their regrets and
expressions of disappointment at my early departure, and I sauntered
quietly back to cousin Bessie's house.
It was not yet dark, though the moon was visible in the clear sky, and
relieved, to find myself once more alone, I walked with purposely slow
and leisure steps towards my home, rehearsing in my mind, with much
genuine amusement, my recent brilliant and highly intellectual
conversation with Miss Longfield.
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