at
roaring lion, Harry Annesley. Mr. Anderson had been received with open
arms, and even M. Grascour. Mrs. Mountjoy had then got it into her head
that of all lions which were about in those days Harry roared the
loudest. His sins in regard to leaving poor Mountjoy speechless and
motionless on the pavement had filled her with horror. But Florence now
felt that all that had come to an end. Not only had Mountjoy gone away,
but no mention would probably be ever again made of Anderson or
Grascour. When Florence was preparing herself for tea that evening she
sung a little song to herself as to the coming of the conquering hero.
"A man must take his chance in such warfare as this," she said,
repeating to herself her lover's words.
"You can't expect me to be very bright," her mother said to her before
Harry came.
There was a sign of yielding in this also; but Florence in her happiness
did not wish to make her mother miserable, "Why not be bright, mamma?
Don't you know that Harry is good?"
"No. How am I to know anything about him? He may be utterly penniless."
"But his uncle has offered to let us live in the house and to give us an
income. Mr. Prosper has abandoned all idea of getting married."
"He can be married any day. And why do you want to live in another man's
house when you may live in your own? Tretton is ready for you,--the
finest mansion in the whole county." Here Mrs. Mountjoy exaggerated a
little, but some exaggeration may be allowed to a lady in her
circumstances.
"Mamma, you know that I cannot live at Tretton."
"It is the house in which I was born."
"How can that signify? When such things happen they are used as
additional grounds for satisfaction. But I cannot marry your nephew
because you were born in a certain house. And all that is over now: you
know that Mountjoy will not come back again."
"He would," exclaimed the mother, as though with new hopes.
"Oh, mamma! how can you talk like that? I mean to marry Harry
Annesley;--you know that I do. Why not make your own girl happy by
accepting him?" Then Mrs. Mountjoy left the room and went to her own
chamber and cried there, not bitterly, I think, but copiously. Her girl
would be the wife of the squire of Buston, who, after all, was not a bad
sort of fellow. At any rate he would not gamble. There had always been
that terrible drawback. And he was a fellow of his college, in which she
would look for, and probably would find, some compensation as t
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