“Oh, you can speak to my aunt Molineux, and she will read you a fine lesson.”
“Where is she?”
“Nobody knows. But there is her house, the one with the iron gate. Get her ear first, if you really love me; and don't you ever waylay me again. If you do, I shall say something rude to you, sir. Oh, I'm so happy!”
Having let this out, she hid her face with her hands, and fled like the very wind.
At dinner-time she was in high spirits.
The admiral congratulated her.
“Brava, Bell! Youth and health and a foreign air will soon cure you of that folly.”
Bella blushed deeply, and said nothing. The truth struggled within her, too, but she shrank from giving pain, and receiving expostulation.
She kept the house, though, for two days, partly out of modesty, partly out of an honest and pious desire to obey her father as much as she could.
The third day Mrs. Molineux arrived, and sent over to the admiral.