How
delightful to spend our lives with them, to do little services for
them that would call up these bright smiles. How pleasant to jest
with them, and hear their flute-like laughter, to console them and
read their grateful eyes. Really life is a pleasant thing, and the
idea of marriage undoubtedly originated in the brain of a kindly
Providence.
We smiled back at them, and we made way for them; we rose from our
chairs with a polite, "Allow me, miss," "Don't mention it, I prefer
standing." "It is a delightful evening, is it not?" And perhaps-
-for what harm was there?--we dropped into conversation with these
chance fellow-passengers upon the stream of life. There were those
among us--bold daring spirits--who even went to the length of mild
flirtation. Some of us knew some of them, and in such happy case
there followed interchange of pretty pleasantries. Your English
middle-class young man and woman are not adepts at the game of
flirtation. I will confess that our methods were, perhaps,
elephantine, that we may have grown a trifle noisy as the evening
wore on. But we meant no evil; we did but our best to enjoy
ourselves, to give enjoyment, to make the too brief time, pass
gaily.
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