He said this as he helped me to alight from the carriage, and while
he afterwards lifted out Adele, I entered the house, and made good
my retreat upstairs.
He duly summoned me to his presence in the evening. I had prepared
an occupation for him; for I was determined not to spend the whole
time in a tete-e-tete conversation. I remembered his fine voice;
I knew he liked to sing -- good singers generally do. I was
no vocalist myself, and, in his fastidious judgment, no musician,
either; but I delighted in listening when the performance was good.
No sooner had twilight, that hour of romance, began to lower her
blue and starry banner over the lattice, than I rose, opened the
piano, and entreated him, for the love of heaven, to give me a
song. He said I was a capricious witch, and that he would rather
sing another time; but I averred that no time was like the present.
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