“Well, my lord,” says I, “just to be as brief as possible, I desire you to see his Majesty at once and procure my future husband’s pardon.”
My lord took forth a red silk handkerchief and slowly wiped his wig.
“This comes of excessive beauty in a daughter,” he commented. “Lord, ’tis a mercy to have ’em plain. My dear child, go and put a powder in your milk and sleep off this attack. Frankly, I do not like it. Or stay, shall I send for Paradise? It were well, perhaps, an your tongue were instantly inspected.”
“Papa,” says I, with awful gravity, “you appear to forget that the first duty of a parent is to be obedient. I command you, sir, to get you to town by to-morrow morning’s mail.”
“’Pon my soul and honour!” coughed his lordship, “this is really——”
“My lord,” says I, “must I repeat that I command you? I love young Anthony, and therefore am I going to marry him.”
“He has a birth, of course?” says this wriggling aristocrat.
“Not he,” says I, “left one night on the doorstep of a priory. Doubtless a bastard of the gutter scum. Even his name is not his own. Hath no more than threepence-halfpenny and a pair of ragged breeches to his fortune. Hath stood in prison several times and adorned the pillory and the whipping post on various occasions. In short, my lord, he is the sauciest rogue that ever kissed a maid against her inclination. And, faith, I believe the very raggedest.”
“And you say you are going to marry him?”
“My lord, I have sworn to marry him.”