He then gave orders aloud that his carriage should be put up; saying, that he had letters to write, and that his servants might go and amuse themselves for an hour or two where they pleased.
Juliet, now, was crimsoned with shame and embarrassment. How account for thus palpably wishing him to remain in the house? or how suffer him, by silence, to suppose it was from a desire of his society? Her blushes astonished, yet, by heightening her beauty, charmed still more than they perplexed him. To settle what to think of her might be difficult and teazing; but to admire her was easy and pleasant. He approached her, therefore, with the most flattering looks and smiles; but, to avoid any mistake in his manner of addressing her, he kept his speech back, with his judgment, till he could learn her purpose.
This prudential circumspection redoubled her confusion, and she hesitatingly stammered her concern that she had prevented his airing.
More amazed still, but still more enchanted, to see her thus at a loss what to say, though evidently pleased that he had relinquished his little excursion, he was making a motion to take her hand, which she had scarcely perceived, when a violent ringing at the door-bell, checked him; and concentrated all her solicitude in the impending danger of Flora; and, in her eagerness to rescue the simple girl from ruin, she hastily said: 'Can you, Sir Jaspar, forgive a liberty in the cause of humanity? May I appeal to your generosity? You will receive a visitor in a few minutes, whom I have earnest reasons for wishing you to detain in your apartment to the last moment that is possible. May I make so extraordinary a request?'
'Request?' repeated Sir Jaspar, charmed by what he considered as an opening to intimacy; 'can you utter any thing but commands? The most benignant sprite of all Fairyland, has inspired you with this gracious disposition to dub me your knight.'
Yet his eyes, still bright with intelligence, and now full of fanciful wonder, suddenly emitted an expression less rapturous, when he distinguished the voice of Sir Lyell Sycamore, in parley with the shop-man. Disappointment and chagrin soon took place of sportive playfulness in his countenance; and, muttering between his teeth, 'O ho! Sir Lyell Sycamore!'—he fixed his keen eyes sharply upon Juliet; with a look in which she could not but read the ill construction to which her seeming knowledge of that young man's motions, and her apparent interest in them, made her liable; and how much his light opinion of Sir Lyell's character, affected his partial, though still fluctuating one of her own.
Sir Lyell, however, was upon the stairs, and she did not dare enter into any justification; Sir Jaspar, too, was silent; but the young baronet mounted, singing, in a loud voice,
O my love, lov'st thou me?
Then quickly come and see one who dies for thee!
'Yes here I come, Sir Lyell!'—in a low, husky, laughing voice, cried Flora, peeping through her chamber-door; which was immediately at the head of the stairs, upon the second floor; and to which Sir Lyell looked up, softly whispering, 'Be still, my little angel! and, in ten minutes—' He stopt abruptly, for Sir Jaspar now caught his astonished sight, upon the landing-place of the attic story, with Juliet retreating behind him.
'O ho! you are there, are you?' he cried, in a tone of ludicrous accusation.