As for the tall Swede, he
has no idea of a fair flower of our sex except to wear it in his
button-hole,--this way!" added she, pulling a rose out of a vase and
archly adorning the Chevalier's vest with it.
"All pretence and jealousy, mademoiselle. The tall Swede knows how
to take down your pride and bring you to a proper sense of your
false conceit of the beauty and wit of the ladies of New France."
Hortense gave two or three tosses of defiance to express her
emphatic dissent from his opinions.
"I wish Herr Kalm would lend me his philosophic scales, to weigh
your sex like lambs in market," continued La Corne St. Luc; "but I
fear I am too old, Hortense, to measure women except by the fathom,
which is the measure of a man."
"And the measure of a man is the measure of an angel too scriptum
est, Chevalier!" replied she. Hortense had ten merry meanings in
her eye, and looked as if bidding him select which he chose. "The
learned Swede's philosophy is lost upon me," continued she, "he can
neither weigh by sample nor measure by fathom the girls of New
France!" She tapped him on the arm.
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