It wants a gentleman to do that.'
'The carriage came for me, sir, in the afternoon,' said Susan,
plaintively, 'with your compliments, and would I come. I thought--'
'What carriage?' asked Evan.
Raikes, who was ogling Polly, interposed grandly, 'Mine!'
'And you sent in my name for this girl to come here?' Evan turned
wrathfully on him.
'My dear Harrington, when you hit you knock down. The wise require but
one dose of experience. The Countess wished it, and I did dispatch.'
'The Countess!' Harry exclaimed; 'Jove! do you mean to say that the
Countess--'
'De Saldar,' added Jack. 'In Britain none were worthy found.'
Harry gave a long whistle.
'Leave at once,' said Evan to Susan. 'Whatever you may want send to me
for. And when you think you can meet your parents, I will take you to
them. Remember that is what you must do.'
'Make her give up that stupidness of hers, about being made a lady of,
Mr. Harrington,' said the inveterate Polly.
Susan here fell a-weeping.
'I would go, sir,' she said. 'I 'm sure I would obey you: but I can't.
I can't go back to the inn. They 're beginning to talk about me,
because--because I can't--can't pay them, and I'm ashamed.'
Evan looked at Harry.
'I forgot,' the latter mumbled, but his face was crimson. He put his
hands in his pockets. 'Do you happen to have a note or so?' he asked.
Evan took him aside and gave him what he had; and this amount, without
inspection or reserve, Harry offered to Susan. She dashed his hand
impetuously from her sight.
'There, give it to me,' said Polly. 'Oh, Mr. Harry! what a young man you
are!'
Whether from the rebuff, or the reproach, or old feelings reviving,
Harry was moved to go forward, and lay his hand on Susan's shoulder and
mutter something in her ear that softened her.
Polly thrust the notes into her bosom, and with a toss of her nose, as
who should say, 'Here 's nonsense they 're at again,' tapped Susan on
the other shoulder, and said imperiously: 'Come, Miss!'
Hurrying out a dozen sentences in one, Harry ended by suddenly kissing
Susan's cheek, and then Polly bore her away; and Harry, with great
solemnity, said to Evan:
''Pon my honour, I think I ought to! I declare I think I love that girl.
What's one's family? Why shouldn't you button to the one that just suits
you? That girl, when she's dressed, and in good trim, by Jove! nobody 'd
know her from a born lady. And as for grammar, I'd soon teach her that.'
Har
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