“But who was she?” he asked.
“I don’t know. Mr. Liversedge was very friendly with her, and he said I should stay with her and do just what she told me.”
He could not help smiling. “And was that to make my—to make Mr. Ware fall in love with you?”
“Yes,” she replied innocently. “I did not mind that, for we went pleasuring together, you know, and he was excessively kind to me, and he said he would marry me, too, and then I should have been a grand lady, and had my carriage, and silk dress besides.”
“Did you wish very much to marry him?”
“Oh, no!” Belinda replied placidly. “I didn’t care, if only I might have all the things Uncle Swithin said I should. He said it would be more comfortable for me if Mr. Ware gave me a great deal of money, and I think it would have been, because he was so jealous, you know, that there was no bearing it. Why, when I only went out to get a pound of black pudding from the pork-butcher, and a gentleman carried the basket for me, there was such an uproar! And he read poetry to me, too.”
“That was certainly very bad!” the Duke said gravely. “But tell me what happened after Mr. Ware—when you were no longer expecting to marry him! Did you run away from that lady?”
“Oh, no, she would not keep me any longer, because she quarreled dreadfully with Uncle Swithin, and she said he was a Jeremy Diddler.”
“What in the world is that?” he enquired, amused.
“I don’t know, but I think Uncle Swithin wouldn’t pay her any money, and she said he had promised it to her for taking care of me. She was as cross as a cat! And Uncle Swithin told her how we should all of us have money from Mr. Ware, but there was an execution in the house, you know, and she would not stay there any more. It is very fidgeting to have an execution in your house, for they take away the furniture, and there is no knowing how to go on. So Uncle Swithin fetched me away in an old tub of a carriage, which was so horrid! I was stuffed to death! And we had to go in the middle of the night, and that was uncomfortable too.”