“Listen to me, girl.”
“Lady, hear me.”
“Hearken not to the popinjay foreigner.”
These, and many more tumultuary exclamations, threats, and entreaties, crowded on one another, and the various speakers were laying hand on staff or sword, and glaring angrily on one another, when the word “Peace,” in the maiden’s clear silvery notes, sounded among them. They all turned as she stood in the doorway, drawn up to her full height.
“Peace,” she said; “I can have no brawling here! My father was grievously sick yesterday, and is still ill at ease. One by one speak your business, and begone. You first, Sir,” to the Gascon, she said in French.
“Ah! fair Lady, what business could be mine, save to tell you how lovely you are?”
“You have said,” she answered, without a blush, waving him aside. “Now you, Sir,” to the tuneful merchant of Bristol.
“I told you, Madam, he meant not well. Those aliens never do.”
“You too have said,” she answered.
The merchant would have persisted, but a London merchant, a much more substantial and considerable character, pushed him aside, and the numbers being all against him, he was forced to give way.