"Now, Sir Christopher, pray let us have none of that nonsense, if you please!" interrupted Lady Blunt, in a tone and with a manner which showed that she knew full well she should be obeyed. "I can't a-bear to hear even the word Alderman mentioned, ever since a lady I lived with once in the City talked something about the Guildhall police-court when she missed the silver spoons——"
"My dear, my dear," said Sir Christopher; "you forget that you are now Lady Blunt! Pray let us change the topic."
"Well, so we will," she cried sharply; "and I'll tell you what we'll talk about."
"What, my best love?" asked the knight.
"Your best love!" almost shrieked the lady. "Then you must have other loves, if I'm your best! Oh! Sir Christopher, was it to hear this that I gave up every thing—all my prospects in life—to become yours?"
"My dear girl," said the knight meekly, "I most humbly submit to you that I do not think you had so very much to give up when I asked you to become Lady Blunt."
"What! do you call a good place and being my own mistress, nothing to give up?" cried Charlotte. "Twenty-four guineas a-year, and the chance of marrying a Duke or a Prince!"
"Well—well, my love, we will not dispute," said the knight, who in his heart wished to God that she never had given up the prospects she spoke of; or that she had married some Duke or Prince—in which latter case Sir Christopher would not have envied either his Grace or his Royal Highness, after the trifling experience he had already enjoyed relative to the fair one's temper.
"No—I should think you would not dispute, either, Sir Christopher!" cried the vixen, tossing her head. "But I was going to tell you what we would talk about, when you interrupted me so rudely. I was going to say that I do not approve of that ham—or yet the chicken—or yet the tongue; and I do not mean to have my breakfast spoilt in this way. Ring the bell, Sir Christopher."
"My dearest Charlotte——"