Lady Katrine looked at him for a moment, to be sure, quite sure, that what she heard was true; then dropping her head upon his shoulder, she burst into a violent flood of tears. So sudden, so delightful was the change in all her feelings, that she was surprised out of all her reserve, all her coquetry, and could only murmur, "Refuse you? no!" But starting up, at length she cried, "I have a great mind that I will, too. Don't think that I love you. No, I hate you most bitterly for making me cry: you did it on purpose, beyond doubt, and I won't forgive you easily. So, to begin your punishment, go away and leave me directly."
"Nay, Katrine, I must disobey," replied the earl, "for I have other news to tell you: your relation, Lord Orham, is dead."
"My relation?" cried Lady Katrine, whose tears were ever dried as soon as shed. "Oh, yes! I remember: he was my great-grandfather's seventieth cousin by the mother's side. One was descended from Shem, and the other from Japheth, in the time of the flood, or before, for aught I know. Well, what of my antediluvian relative? Oh! he is dead, you say? May he rest with Noah!"
"But you must take mourning for him," said Lord Darby, laughing; "indeed you must."
"Certainly," replied Lady Katrine: "a coif and a widow's hood. But I won't be teased, Darby: I will tease everybody, and nobody shall tease me. As to going into mourning for the old miser just now, when all my finery is ready made, to show myself at Guisnes and captivate all hearts, and make you fight fifty single combats--I won't do it. There, go and ask my singing-bird to moult in the month of May, or anything else of the same kind; but don't ask me to leave one single row of lace off my sleeve for the miser. I disown him."
"Hush! hush! hush!" cried the earl; "take care he does not come back and disown you, for otherwise you are his heiress."
"I!" exclaimed Lady Katrine; "am I his heiress? Now, Mistress Fortune, I am your very humble servant! Bless us! how much more important a person Katrine Bulmer will be, with all the heavy coffers of her late dear cousin, than when she was poor Katrine Bulmer, the queen's woman! Darby, I give you notice: I shall not marry you. I could wed a duke now, doubtless: who shall it be? All the dukes have wives, I do believe. However, there is many a peer richer than you are, and though you do not count cousinship with kings, gold is my passion now; so I will sell myself to him who has the most."
Though she spoke in jest, still Lord Darby was mortified; for what he could have borne and laughed at in the poor and fortuneless girl who had captivated his heart, his spirit was too proud to endure where a mercenary motive could be for a moment attributed to him. "Nay, Katrine," said he, "if the fortune that is now yours give you any wish for change, your promises are to me null: I render them back to you from this moment."
"Why, they were made under very different circumstances, you must allow, Lord Darby," replied she, assuming a most malicious air of gravity, and delighted at having found, for the first time in her life, the means of putting her lover out of humour.
"They were, Lady Katrine," answered the earl, much more deeply hurt than she imagined, "and therefore they are at an end. I have nothing further to do then but to take my leave."