ord.

When she was quite sure he would not, she said,

"Do you know there's a ridiculous report about that you are going to be
married?"

"Indeed!"

"They even tell her name--Miss Bruce. Do you know the girl?"

"Yes."

"Is she pretty?"

"Very."

"Modest?"

"As an angel."

"And are you going to marry her?"

"Yes."

"Then you are a villain."

"The deuce I am!"

"You are, to abandon a woman who has sacrificed all for you."

Sir Charles looked puzzled, and then smiled; but was too polite to give
his thoughts vent. Nor was it necessary; Miss Somerset, whose brave
eyes never left the person she was speaking to, fired up at the smile
alone, and she burst into a torrent of remonstrance, not to say
vituperation. Sir Charles endeavored once or twice to stop it, but it
was not to be stopped; so at last he quietly took up his hat, to go.

He was arrested at the door by a rustle and a fall. He turned round,
and there was Miss Somerset lying on her back, grinding her white teeth
and clutching the air.

He ran to the bell and rang it violently, then knelt down and did his
best to keep her from hurting herself; but, as generally happens in
these cases, his interference made her more violent. He had hard work
to keep her from battering her head against the floor, and her arms
worked like windmills.

Hearing the bell tugged so violently, a pretty page ran headlong into
the room--saw--and; without an instant's diminution of speed, described
a curve, and ran headlong out, screaming "Polly! Polly!"

The next moment the housekeeper, an elderly woman, trotted in at the
door, saw her mistress's condition, and stood stock-still, calling,
"Polly," but with the most perfect tranquillity the mind can conceive.

In ran a strapping house-maid, with black eyes and brown arms, went
down on her knees, and said, firmly though respectfully, "Give her me,
sir."

She got behind her struggling mistress, pulled her up into her own lap,
and pinned her by the wrists with a vigorous grasp.

The lady struggled, and ground her teeth audibly, and flung her arms
abroad. The maid applied all her rustic strength and harder muscle to
hold her within bounds. The four arms went to and fro in a magnificent
struggle, and neither could the maid hold the mistress still, nor the
mistress shake off the maid's grasp, nor strike anything to hurt
herself.

Sir Charles, thrust out of the play looked on with pity and anxiety,
and the little page a