'Lucky dog!'
'But though Adeline was the victim neither of her own weakness nor of my seductions, but was merely urged by circumstances to act up to the principles which she openly professed, I felt so conscious that she would be degraded in your eyes after you were acquainted with her situation, though in mine she appears as spotless as ever, that I could not bear to expose her even to a glance from you less respectful than those with which you beheld her last night. I therefore prevailed on her to leave Lisbon; nor had I any difficulty in so doing, when she found that your wish of introducing her to your sisters was founded on your supposition of her being my wife, and that all chance of your desiring her acquaintance for them would be over, when you knew the nature of her connexion with me. I shall now bid you farewell. I write in haste and agitation, and have not time to say more than God bless you!
'F. G.'
'Yes, yes, I see how it is,' muttered Mr Maynard to himself when he had finished the letter, 'he was jealous of me. I wish (raising his voice) that he had not been in such a hurry to go away.'
'Why, brother,' replied Mrs Wallington, 'to be sure you would not have introduced us to this piece of angelic purity a little the worse for the wear!'
'No,' replied he; 'but I might have enjoyed her company myself.'
'And perhaps, brother, you might have rivalled the philosophic author in time,' observed Miss Maynard.
'If I had not, it would have been from no want of good will on my part,' returned Maynard.
'Well, then I rejoice that the creature is gone,' replied Mrs Wallington, drawing up.
'And I too,' said Miss Maynard disdainfully: 'but I think we had better drop this subject; I have had quite enough of it.'
'And so have I,' cried Mrs Wallington: 'but I must observe, before we drop it entirely, that when next my brother comes home and wearies his sisters by exaggerated praises of another woman, I hope he will take care that his goddess, or rather his angel of purity, does not turn out to be a kept mistress.'