'Love-letters and trinkets to you!' exclaimed I. 'Surely he was not so base, Madam.'
'But he was so base, Madam,' said she with a bitter look; 'and if you fancy that 'tis yourself he loves, why look there; read the letter he sent me yesterday, just after I had asked him to pay me for six months' diet and lodging.'
I read:
'Accept, my lovely hostess, the pair of bracelets which accompanies this note, and rest assured that I will discharge my bill, in the course of another month.
'My motive for having brought Miss Wilkinson into your house, as my cousin, was simply to restore her to her friends. Your jealousy, though most unfounded, is most flattering.
'Ah, how little do you know your Grundy!—If I pay the silly girl a few slight attentions, it is only to cloak that tenderness for you, which preys upon my heart, and consumes my vitals;—that tenderness, which I yesterday so solemnly vowed to evince (as soon as my affairs are arranged) at the altar.
'Your own, own, own,
'Abraham Grundy.'
It was as much as my dignity could do to suppress my indignation at this letter; but the heroine prevailed, and I cast on his lordship my famous compound expression of pity, contempt, and surprise, which I tinged with just fascination enough to remind him of what a jewel he had lost.
Meantime he stood wiping his face, and did not utter a word.