Alfred de Rosann — page 83: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

74 ALFRED DE ROSANN. vacillation and capriciousness, when they are not them- selyes more constant to their purposes than | the shade By the light quivering aspen made, as our great poet and novelist of the north has ex- pressed it!?? «A gallant man will reproach the fair sex for no- thing, save its cruelty and indifference to the sighs of its despairing admirers,’ said De Rosann, with the common politeness of a Frenchman, who seldom suf- fers an opportunity of paying a compliment to pass unheeded. But Alfred’s reflections were wandering to other matters at the time,—he thought of his faith- ful Eloise, and uttered the above words in a moment of absence, regardless of their import, and forgetful of the manner in which they might be interpreted. Se- lina was surprised to hear such a sentence issue from the lips of De Rosann: he usually forbore to address an useless flattery to one whose accomplished mind soared above those trifies; and hitherto their conversa- tion had invariably turned upon subjects which, being of a graver nature than the common-place topies of the day, did not admit of the idle nothings and petites bagatelles usually addressed by empty-headed young men to vain and conceited women. Selina therefore attached a certain importance to the reply that De Ro- sani had made to her defence of her own sex; and in- stantaneously cast a memorial glance over her conduct, to ascertain if she had ever been guilty of the slightest indiflerence towards our hero. Her rapid investiga- tion was satisfactory to herself on this head; but it caused a sigh to agitate her bosom, as she inwardly - thought, “ Alfred has never expressed himself in such terms before: perhaps he begins to perceive that I am vain and giddy, like the generality of my sex, and therefore intends to offer me up the same incense of adulation that he and his contemporaries present to the’ coquetish and the proud.”’ De Rosann himself forgot the words he had so im- prudently uttered as soon as they had left his lips; the Gomichbooks,.com