The Trimmed Lamp

0:00 Once they included Nancy in an invitation.

0:03 The dinner took place in a spectacular café

0:05 whose tables were engaged for New Year's Eve a year in advance.

0:10 There were two gentlemen friends,

0:12 one without any hair on his head.

0:14 High living ungrew it, and we can prove it.

0:18 The other, a young man whose worth and sophistication

0:21 he impressed upon you in two convincing ways.

0:24 He swore that all the wine was corked,

0:27 and he wore diamond cuff buttons.

0:30 This young man perceived irresistible excellencies in Nancy.

0:34 His taste ran to shop girls,

0:36 and here was one that added the voice and manners

0:39 of his high social world to the franker charms of her own caste.

0:43 So on the following day he appeared in the store

0:46 and made her a serious proposal of marriage

0:49 over a box of hem-stitched, grass-bleached Irish linens.

0:54 Nancy declined.