"Tut, tut, my dear Molly! Pish! Pshaw! What know you of such matters? A chit of a young female of sixteen! I'm positively shamed of you. Why, you're scarce out of the nursery, child. And here's Polly, the prettiest girl in all London, past twenty-one, and not yet married! No, nor like to be, while old Nap lives, if she wait for Captain Ivor; and depend on 't, old Nap'll not die yet for many a long year. Is Polly to delay till her prettiness goes, and she turns into an elderly maiden, whom no man of ton will deign to cast eyes upon, while Captain Ivor spends fifteen or twenty years in France, and forgets his past fancy, and marries some beauteous young Frenchwoman?"
Molly gazed at Polly's downcast face. "But Polly knows Denham better," she said.
"Knows Captain Ivor better! And how may that be," demanded the vivacious lady, "since Polly has seen him but from time to time, and that at long intervals, and I have been acquainted with him since he was left an orphan at the age of seven? Nor have I a word to speak against Captain Denham Ivor, save only that to expect Polly to wait for him twenty years, losing her bloom and growing old, would be altogether unreasonable."
"Polly is yet a good way off from growing old," persisted Molly.
"Well, well, that's as may be. But you've not divined my secret yet. Jack will be at my Lady Hawthorne's to-night; and 'tis not Jack of whom I speak. Bob Monke is like to be there, for aught I know, and 'tis not Bob. Captain Peirce will be there, and 'tis not Captain Peirce. Somebody else will be there,—and 'tis he."
Mrs. Bryce lifted a book from the table. "Who was it that read last week the 'Lay of the Last Minstrel,' and that said she would give half she was possessed of, to set eyes on the writer of that most elegant poem?"
"Mr. Walter Scott!" The rapture on Molly's face repaid Mrs. Bryce, who, whatever her faults might have been, did dearly love to give pleasure. Polly too smiled, but more quietly, having her mind greatly preoccupied.
"Mr. Walter Scott is now in London, and he will be at my Lady Hawthorne's assemblage. So now, Miss, what say you to my promise of somebody that shall be worth seeing? You may count yourself a fortunate young woman! At your early age, not only to have a personal acquaintance with so distinguished a martial hero as Sir John Moore, but also to have had a sight of Mr. Southey, and of Mr. Southey's friend, Mr. William Wordsworth,—and now to be brought face to face with Mr. Scott himself. I give you joy of such good fortune."
"And I love the 'Lay of the Last Minstrel' infinitely more than I love 'Thalada,'" remarked Molly. "Sure, ma'am, so great a poet as Mr. Scott has never yet been known."
"If the public voice be true, 'tis even so. Mr. Southey complains sorely of his ill-luck in the poor sale of his poems, and I know not that Mr. Wordsworth has much to boast of. Whereas Mr. Scott's poems go off by the myriad, and are read of all. I'm informed that Mr. Constable this year is paying him one thousand pounds in advance for a poem not yet completed—a poem about a place named 'Rokeby.' But now 'tis full time you began to prepare yourselves; and Polly must look her best."