Book 6 - Chapter 1

A Duet in Paradise

The well-furnished drawing-room, with the open grand piano, and the
pleasant outlook down a sloping garden to a boat-house by the side of
the Floss, is Mr. Deane's. The neat little lady in mourning, whose
light-brown ringlets are falling over the colored embroidery with
which her fingers are busy, is of course Lucy Deane; and the fine
young man who is leaning down from his chair to snap the scissors in
the extremely abbreviated face of the "King Charles" lying on the
young lady's feet is no other than Mr. Stephen Guest, whose diamond
ring, attar of roses, and air of _nonchalant_ leisure, at twelve
o'clock in the day, are the graceful and odoriferous result of the
largest oil-mill and the most extensive wharf in St. Ogg's. There is
an apparent triviality in the action with the scissors, but your
discernment perceives at once that there is a design in it which makes
it eminently worthy of a large-headed, long-limbed young man; for you
see that Lucy wants the scissors, and is compelled, reluctant as she
may be, to shake her ringlets back, raise her soft hazel eyes, smile
playfully down on the face that is so very nearly on a level with her
knee, and holding out her little shell-pink palm, to say,--

"My scissors, please, if you can renounce the great pleasure of
persecuting my poor Minny."

The foolish scissors have slipped too far over the knuckles, it seems,
and Hercules holds out his entrapped fingers hopelessly.

"Confound the scissors! The oval lies the wrong way. Please draw them
off for me."

"Draw them off with your other hand," says Miss Lucy, roguishly.

"Oh, but that's my left hand; I'm not left-handed."

Lucy laughs, and the scissors are drawn off with gentle touches from
tiny tips, which naturally dispose Mr. Stephen for a repetition _da
capo_. Accordingly, he watches for the release of the scissors, that
he may get them into his possession again.

"No, no," said Lucy, sticking them in her band, "you shall not have my
scissors again,--you have strained them already. Now don't set Minny
growling again. Sit up and behave properly, and then I will tell you
some news."

"What is that?" said Stephen, throwing himself back and hanging his
right arm over the corner of his chair. He might have been sitting for
his portrait, which would have represented a rather striking young man
of five-and-twenty, with a square forehead, short dark-brown hair,
standing erect, with a slight wave at the end, like a thick crop of
corn, and a half-ardent, half-sarcastic glance from under his
well-marked horizontal eyebrows. "Is it very important news?"

"Yes, very. Guess."

"You are going to change Minny's diet, and give him three ratafias