head and ears.”
“I don't believe it. If he was really in love with one woman he couldn't be just to another. I couldn't. He'll be coming back to me in a few months.”
“God forbid!”
“Thank you, old gentleman.”
Mr. Oldfield began to stammer excuses. She interrupted him: “Oh, bother all that; I like you none the worse for speaking your mind.” Then, after a pause, “Now excuse me; but suppose Sir Charles should change his mind, and never sign this paper?”
“I pledge my professional credit.”
“That is enough, sir; I see I can trust you. Well, then, I consent to break off with Sir Charles, and only see him once more—as a friend. Poor Sir Charles! I hope he will be happy” (she squeezed out a tear for him)—“happier than I am. And when he does come he can sign the deed, you know.”
Mr. Oldfield left her, and joined Sir Charles at Long's, as had been previously agreed.
“It is all right, Sir Charles; she is a sensible girl, and will give you no further trouble.”
“How did you get over the hysterics?”
“We dispensed with them. She saw at once it was to be business, not sentiment. You are to pay her one more visit, to sign, and part friends. If you please, I'll make that appointment with both parties, as soon as the deed is engrossed. Oh, by-the-by, she did shed a tear or two, but she dried them to ask me for the ponies and the brown mare.”
Sir Charles's vanity was mortified. But he laughed it off, and said she should have them, of course.
So now his mind was at ease, his conscience was at rest, and he could give his whole time where he had given his heart.
Richard Bassett learned, through his servant, that the wedding-dresses were ordered. He called on Miss Somerset. She was out.
Polly opened the door and gave him a look of admiration—due to his fresh color—that encouraged him to try and enlist her in his service.
He questioned her, and she told him in a general way how matters were going. “But,” said she, “why not come and talk to her yourself? Ten to one but she tells you. She is pretty outspoken.”
“My pretty dear,” said Richard, “she never will receive me.”
“Oh, but I'll make her!” said Polly.
And she did exert her influence as follows:
“Lookee here, the cousin's a-coming to-morrow and I've been and promised he should see you.”
“What did you do that for?”
“Why, he's a well-looking chap, and a beautiful color, fresh from the country, like me. And he's a gentleman, and got an estate belike; and why not put yourn to hisn, and so marry him and be a lady? You might have me about ye all the same, till my turn comes.”
“No, no,” said Rhoda; “that's not the man for me. If ever I marry, it must be one of my own sort, or else a fool, like Marsh, that I can make a slave of.”
“Well, any way, you must see him, not to make a fool of me, for I did promise him; which, now I think on't, 'twas very good of me, for I could find in my heart to ask him down into the kitchen, instead of bringing him upstairs to you.”
All this ended, somehow, in Mr. Bassett's being admitted.
To his anxious inquiry how matters stood, she replied coolly that Sir Charles and herself were parted by mutual consent.
“What! after all your protestations?” said Bassett, bitterly.
But Miss Somerset was not in an irascible humor just then. She shrugged her shoulders, and said:
“Yes, I remember I put myself in a passion, and said some ridiculous things. But one can't be always a fool. I have come to my senses. This sort of thing always does end, you know. Most of them part enemies, but he and I part friends and well-wishers.”
“And you throw me over as if I was nobody,” said Richard, white with anger.
“Why, what are you to me?” said the Somerset. “Oh, I see. You thought to make a cat's-paw of me. Well, you won't, then.”
“In other words, you have been bought off.”
“No, I have not. I am not to be bought by anybody—and I am not to be insulted by you, you ruffian! How dare you come here and affront a lady in her own house—a lady whose shoestrings your betters are ready to tie, you brute? If you want to be a landed proprietor, go and marry some ugly old hag that's got it, and no eyesight left to see you're no gentleman. Sir Charles's land you'll never have; a better man has got it, and means to keep it for him and his. Here, Polly! Polly! Polly! take this man down to the kitchen, and teach him manners if you can: he is not fit for my drawing-room, by a long chalk.”
Polly arrived in time to see the flashing eyes, the swelling veins, and to hear the fair orator's peroration.
“What, you are in your tantrums again!” said she. “Come along, sir. Needs must when the devil drives. You'll break a blood-vessel some day, my lady, like your father afore ye.”
And with this homely suggestion, which always sobered Miss Somerset, and, indeed, frightened her out of her wits, she withdrew the offender. She did not take him into the kitchen, but into the dining-room, and there he had a long talk with her, and gave her a sovereign.
She promised to inform him if anything important should occur.
He went away, pondering and scowling deeply.
CHAPTER IV.
SIR CHARLES BASSETT was now living in Elysium. Never was rake more thoroughly transformed. Every day he sat for hours at the feet of Bella Bruce, admiring her soft, feminine ways and virgin modesty even more than her beauty. And her visible blush whenever he appeared suddenly, and the soft commotion and yielding in her lovely frame whenever he drew near, betrayed his magnetic influence, and told all but the blind she adored him.
She would decline all invitations to dine with him and her father—a strong-minded old admiral, whose authority was unbounded, only, to Bella's regret, very rarely exerted. Nothing would have pleased her more than to be forbidden this and commanded that; but no! the admiral was a lion with an enormous paw, only he could not be got to put it into every pie.
In this charming society the hours glided, and the wedding-day drew close. So deeply and sincerely was Sir Charles in love that when Mr. Oldfield's letter came, appointing the day and hour to sign Miss Somerset's deed, he was unwilling to go, and wrote back to ask if the deed could not be sent to his house.
Mr. Oldfield replied that the parties to the deed and the witnesses must meet, and it would be unadvisable, for
