"Certainly, sir, certainly, in the best manner possible."
"Oh, very well; I shall want some rooms furnished soon,—a bedroom and a dressing-room, and things of that sort, you know. And so—perhaps you may have something in your box that will suit me, gloves or handkerchiefs or shirts or things of that sort."
"Yes, sir, everything, I sell everything," said Mr. Brown, opening his box. "I beg pardon, Miss Isabel, I have dropped my handkerchief by your chair; allow me to stoop," and Mr. Brown, stooping under the table, managed to effect his purpose; unseen by the rest, a note was slipped into Isabel's hand, and under pretence of stooping too, she managed to secure the treasure. Love need well be honest if, even when it is most true, it leads us into so much that is false!
Mr. Brown's box was now unfolded before the eyes of the crafty Mr. Glumford, who, having selected three pair of gloves, offered the exact half of the sum demanded.
Mr. Brown lifted up his hands and eyes.
"You see," said the imperturbable Glumford, "that if you let me have them for that, and they last me well, and don't come unsewn, and stand cleaning, you'll have my custom in furnishing the house, and rooms, and—things of that sort."
Struck with the grandeur of this opening, Mr. Brown yielded, and the gloves were bought.
"The fool!" thought the noble George, laughing in his sleeve, "as if I should ever furnish the house from his box!" Strange that some men should be proud of being mean! The moment Isabel escaped to dress for dinner, she opened her lover's note. It was as follows.—
Be in the room, your retreat, at nine this evening. Let the window be left unclosed. Precisely at that hour I will be with you. I shall have everything in readiness for your flight. Be sure, dearest Isabel, that nothing prevents your meeting me there, even if all your house follow or attend you. I will bear you from all. Oh, Isabel! in spite of the mystery and wretchedness of your letter, I feel too happy, too blest at the thought that our fates will be at length united, and that the union is at hand. Remember nine. A. M.
Love is a feeling which has so little to do with the world, a passion so little regulated by the known laws of our more steady and settled emotions, that the thoughts which it produces are always more or less connected with exaggeration and romance. To the secret spirit of enterprise which, however chilled by his pursuits and habits, still burned within Mordaunt's breast, there was a wild pleasure in the thought of bearing off his mistress and his bride from the very home and hold of her false friends and real foes; while in the contradictions of the same passion, Isabel, so far from exulting at her approaching escape, trembled at her danger and blushed for her temerity; and the fear and the modesty of woman almost triumphed over her brief energy and fluctuating resolve.