"Fate will be very kind to Stephen Archdale," he said as soon as they
were out of hearing, "should it substitute you for that young lady,
kinder to him than to you, since he was man enough to want her."
"You don't like Katie?" cried Elizabeth, ignoring the subject she shrank
from. "You are the first person I ever heard of who did not."
"Pardon me. I did not say that I did not like her. I was making a
comparison. She is an exceedingly pretty little puppet, and she goes
through all her little tricks, if I may call them so without
disparagement, with a delightful docility. After the clockwork is wound
up, it doesn't hitch, or stop, until it runs down. But there is nothing
unexpected about her; in five minutes you get to know her like a book."
"A book you have not read," cried Elizabeth with spirit.
Edmonson laughed. "Nobody would venture to predict your next acts or
words," he said; "he would be a bold man that tried."
"No," she answered with sadness in her gravity. "I never know them
myself. I have none of that poise which it is worth such a struggle to
gain. That is the reason why--.
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