“N-o, ma’am, I believe not.”
“I thought he meant to leave us to-day? He said so.”
“He intended it, ma’am,—he would else not have said it.”
“I know I understood so, though he has not spoke to me of his designs this great while.”
I saw an air bordering upon displeasure as this was said and how sorry I felt!—and how ashamed of being concluded the person better informed! Yet, as he had really related to me his plan, and I knew it to be what he had thought most respectful to herself, I concluded it best, thus catechised, to speak it all, and therefore, after some hesitation uninterrupted by her, I said, “I believe, ma’am, Mr. Fairly had intended fully to begin his journey to-day, but, as Your majesty is to go to the play to-night, he thinks it his duty to defer setting out till to-morrow, that he may have the honour to attend your majesty as usual.”
This, which was the exact truth, evidently pleased her.
Here the inquiry dropped; but I was very uneasy to relate it to Mr. Fairly, that the sacrifice I knew he meant to make of another day might not lose all its grace by wanting to be properly revealed.