“Told you, my lady, I should come when your daughter was marriageable.”
“Oho! that’s it? I thought it was the Election!
“Election be ——— hem!—beg pardon, my lady.”
“Swear, Tom, if it relieves you. I think it bad to check an oath or a sneeze.”
“I’m come to see you on business, my lady, or I shouldn’t have troubled you.”
“Malice?”
“You’ll see I don’t bear any, my lady.”
“Ah! if you had only sworn roundly twenty-five years ago, what a much younger man you would have been! and a brave capital old friend whom I should not have missed all that time.”
“Come!” cried Old Tom, varying his eyes rapidly between her ladyship’s face and the floor, “you acknowledge I had reason to.”
“Mais, cela va sans dire.”