[CHAPTER IV]
The next morning my servant informed me that a lady desired to speak a word to me. Her name was Porter.
"You are come to scold me for sending my old nurse to console the general?" said I, when I entered the room where she was waiting.
"Not at all, my dear, wild young lady," answered Mrs. Porter; "but I am now come to inform you that you have made the conquest of a very fine, noble, unexceptionable man."
"Delightful," said I. "Who is he?"
"I dare not tell you his name," interrupted Mrs. Porter, "but you may rest assured that he is a man of fashion and rank."
"It will not do!" reiterated I, striking my head. "Tell your friend that I have no money, that I do not know how to take care of myself, and Argyle takes no care of me. Tell him that nobody wants a real steady friend more than I do; but I cannot meet a stranger as a lover. Tell him all this, if he is really handsome that is to say (for the stranger I had twice met riding down Sloane Street, accompanied by his large dog, had lately run often in my head), and let me know what he says to-morrow."
Mrs. Porter acquiesced, and hearing a loud rap at my door, she hastily took her leave.
This was Fanny. At his own earnest request, she had brought me the son of the rich Freeling, secretary to the General Post Office; saying, "Mr. Freeling will allow me no rest, till I have made him known to you."