Still, I fear that I shall always be Folly,
as you will be Reason."
"If you will persist in paying me such high-flown compliments,"
said Isabelle, with a little shrug of her pretty shoulders, "I shall
certainly resume the reading, and you will have to listen to a long
story that the corsair is just about to relate to the beautiful
princess, his captive, in the cabin of his galley."
"Oh, no! surely I do not deserve such a severe punishment as that. Even
at the risk of appearing garrulous, I do so want to talk a little. That
confounded doctor has kept me mute long enough in all conscience, and
I am tired to death of having the seal of silence upon my lips, like a
statue of Hippocrates."
"But I am afraid you may do yourself harm; remember that your wound
is scarcely healed yet, and the injured lung is still very irritable.
Maitre Laurent laid such stress upon my reading to you, so that you
should keep quiet, and give your chest a good chance to get strong and
well again."
"Maitre Laurent doesn't know what he's talking about, and only wants
to prolong his own importance to me. My lungs work as well as ever they
did. I feel perfectly myself again, and I've a great mind to order my
horse and go for a canter in the forest."
"You had better talk than do such a wildly imprudent thing as that; it
is certainly less dangerous.
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