Читать книгу The Marriage of Elinor онлайн

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"Mariamne told me there was a lot of lies—that people said—I am so glad, John, oh! so thankful, that you have not repeated any of them; for now I can feel you are my own good John, as you always were, not a slanderer of any one, and we can go on being fond of each other like brother and sister. I have told him you have been the best of brothers to me."

"Oh," said John, without a sign of wonder or admiration in him, with a dead blank in his face.

"And what do you think he said? 'Then I know he must be a capital fellow, Ne——'"

"Not Nelly," said poor John, with a foolish pang that seemed to rend his heart. Oh, if that scamp, that cheat, that low betting, card-playing rascal were but here! he would capital-fellow him. To take not herself only, but the dear pet name that she had said was only John's——

"He says Nell sometimes, John. Oh, not Nelly—Nelly is for you only. I would never let him call me that. But they are all for short names, one syllable—he is Phil, and Mariamne, well at home they call her Jew—horrible, isn't it?—because she was called after some Jewess; but somehow it seems queer when you see her, so fair and frizzy, like anything but a Jew."