He asked her if she
knew his cousin, Miss Chancellor, whom he indicated, beside Mrs.
Farrinder; _she_ believed, on the contrary, in wonderful times (she
thought they were coming); she had plenty of sympathy, and he was sure
she was willing to make sacrifices.
Doctor Prance looked at her across the room for a moment; then she said
she didn't know her, but she guessed she knew others like her--she went
to see them when they were sick. "She's having a private lecture to
herself," Ransom remarked; whereupon Doctor Prance rejoined, "Well, I
guess she'll have to pay for it!" She appeared to regret her own
half-dollar, and to be vaguely impatient of the behaviour of her sex.
Ransom became so sensible of this that he felt it was indelicate to
allude further to the cause of woman, and, for a change, endeavoured to
elicit from his companion some information about the gentlemen present.
He had given her a chance, vainly, to start some topic herself; but he
could see that she had no interests beyond the researches from which,
this evening, she had been torn, and was incapable of asking him a
personal question. She knew two or three of the gentlemen; she had seen
them before at Miss Birdseye's.
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