Or, on the other hand, if the rays of a passionate nature
should ever be concentrated on them, they would be absorbed into the
very depths of his nature, and then his blood would turn to flame and
burn his life out of him, until his cheeks grew as white as the ashes
that cover a burning coal.
I wish I had not said _either sex_ in my certificate. An academy for
young gentlemen, now; that sounds cool and unimaginative. A boys'
school; that would be a very good place for him;--some of them are
pretty rough, but there is nerve enough in that old Wentworth blood; he
can give any country fellow, of the common stock, twenty pounds, and hit
him out of time in ten minutes. But to send such a young fellow as that
out a girl's-nesting! to give this falcon a free pass into all the
dove-cotes! I was a fool,--that's all.
I brooded over the mischief which might come out of these two words
until it seemed to me that they were charged with destiny. I could
hardly sleep for thinking what a train I might have been laying, which
might take a spark any day, and blow up nobody knows whose peace or
prospects. What I dreaded most was one of those miserable matrimonial
misalliances where a young fellow who does not know himself as yet
flings his magnificent future into the checked apron-lap of some
fresh-faced, half-bred country-girl, no more fit to be mated with him
than her father's horse to go in double harness with Flora Temple.
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