'But the gentleman who has the honour of being her intended sposo,' continued Mrs. Woodward.
'What the devil's a sposo?' said Uncle Bat, who was sitting in an arm-chair with a handkerchief over his head.
'Why, you're not a sposo, Uncle Bat,' said Linda; 'but Harry is, and so is Charley.'
'Oh, I see,' said the captain; 'it's a bird with his wings clipped.'
'But the gentleman who has the honour of being her intended sposo——' again read Mrs. Woodward.
'Now I'm sure I'm speaking by the card,' said Charley, 'when I say that there is not another man in London who could have written that line, and who would have used so detestable a word. I think I remember his using it in one of his lectures to me; indeed I'm sure I do. Sposo! I should like to tweak his nose oh!'
'Are you going to let me go on?' said Mrs. Woodward—'her intended sposo'—Charley gave a kick with his foot and satisfied himself with that—'is determined to have nothing to say to her in the matrimonial line till she has revealed to him this secret which he thinks concerns his own honour.'
'There, I knew he'd tell it.'
'He has not told it yet,' said Norman.
'The lady, however, is obdurate, wonderfully so, of course, seeing that she is the world's last wonder, and so the match is broken off. But the secret is of such a nature that the lady's invincible objection to revealing it is bound up with the fact of her being a promised bride.'