“I will not disturb your happy innocence, my love. It is enough for your uncle and me to be awake, to counteract any machinations. Ah! I see your astonishment! You are so simple, my dear child, and you have been studiously kept in the dark.”
“I can’t think what you are driving at,” said Elvira, impatiently. “Mrs. Brownlow would never let any harm happen to me, nor Allen either. Do let me go.”
“One moment, my darling. I must love you through all, and you will know your true friends one day. Are you—let me ask the question out of my deep, almost maternal, solicitude—are you engaged to Mr. Brownlow?”
“Of course I am!”
“Of course, as you say. Most ingenuous! Ah? well, may it not be too late!”
“Don’t be so horrid, Lisette! Allen is not half a bad fellow, and frightfully in love with me.”
“Exactly, my dear unsuspicious dove. There! I see you are impatient. You will know the truth soon enough. One kiss, for your mother’s sake.”
But Elvira broke from her, and rejoined Allen.
“I have sounded the child,” said Lisette to her husband that evening, “and she is quite in the dark, though the very servants in the house are better informed.”
“Better informed than the fact, may be,” said Mr. Gould (for a man always scouts a woman’s gossip).