‘I don’t wish her to blazon it, but if she would only act openly by me,’ said the distressed curate. ‘I wish nothing more than that she was safe married; and then if you ladies appoint another beauty, I’ll give up the place, and live at --- college.’
‘We’ll advertise for the female Chimpanzee, and depend upon it she will marry at the end of six weeks. So you have attacked her in person. What did she say?’
‘Nothing that she could help. She stood with those great
eyes cast down, looking like a statue, and sometimes vouchsafing “yes, sir,” or “no, sir.” It was “no, sir,” when I asked if her mother knew. I am afraid it must be something very unsatisfactory, Cilla; but she might say more to you if you were not going away.’
‘Oh! Mr. Prendergast, why did you not come sooner?’
‘I did come an hour ago, but you were not come down.’
‘I’ll walk on at once; the carriage can pick me up. I’ll fetch my hat. Poor Edna! I’ll soon make her satisfy your mind. Has any one surmised who it can be?’
‘The notion is that it is one of your musicians—very dangerous, I am afraid; and I say, Cilla, did you ever do such a thing—you couldn’t, I suppose—as lend her Shelley’s poems?’
‘I? No; certainly not.’
‘There was a copy lying on the table in her little parlour, as if she had been writing something out from it. It is very odd, but it was in that peculiar olive-green morocco that some of the books in your father’s library were bound in.’