"Or," pursued my father, waxing hotter and hotter, "or a 'lady' such as his wife is, the Jezebel daughter of an Ahab father!—brought up in the impious atrocities of France, and the debaucheries of Naples, where, though she keeps it close here, she abode with that vile woman whom they call Lady Hamilton."
John started. Well he might, for even to our quiet town had come, all this winter, foul newspaper tales about Nelson and Lady Hamilton.
"Take care," he said, in much agitation. "Any taint upon a woman's fame harms not her alone but all connected with her. For God's sake, sir, whether it be true or not, do not whisper in Norton Bury that Lady Caroline Brithwood is a friend of Lady Hamilton."
"Pshaw! What is either woman to us?"
And my father climbed the steps to his own door, John following.
"Nay, young gentleman, my poor house is hardly good enough for such as thee."
John turned, cruelly galled, but recovered himself.
"You are unjust to me, Abel Fletcher; and you yourself will think so soon. May I come in?"
My father made no answer, and I brought John in as usual. In truth, we had both more to think of than Abel Fletcher's temporary displeasure. This strange chance—what might it imply?—to what might it not lead? But no: if I judged Mrs. Jessop aright, it neither implied, nor would lead to, what I saw John's fancy had at once sprang toward, and revelled in, madly. A lover's fancy—a lover's hope. Even I could see what will-o'-the-wisps they were.
But the doctor's good wife, Ursula March's wise governess, would never lure a young man with such phantoms as these. I felt sure—certain—that if we met the Brithwoods we should meet no one else. Certain, even when, as we sat at our dish of tea, there came in two little dainty notes—the first invitations to worldly festivity that had ever tempted our Quaker household, and which Jael flung out of her fingers as if they had been coals from Gehenna. Notes, bidding us to a "little supper" at Dr. Jessop's, with Mr. and Lady Caroline Brithwood, of the Mythe House.