“But, my dear lady, this is really too preposterous. I think you had better talk it over with your aunt.”
The unexpected mention of that dame was perilously like cold water to my courage. But a little fortitude overcame my qualms.
“No need to appeal to the family, my lord,” I said, with arrogance; “I don’t care fourpence for ’em, and never did. As for the dowager, my aunt, I hate her; and I am indulging in great hopes that this miserable match will make her very ill.”
“But, my dearest girl, I beseech you to condescend to a little reason.”
“Oh, if it comes to reason, sir,” I blithely reassured him, “I have sufficient reason to advance with which to endow two sciences.”
“We’ll hear it, then, under your permission.”
“It’s simply that I love the man, my lord. He’s the finest lad you ever saw; a person of tenacity and kindness, of sagacity and courage, of simplicity and wit. He would die for me to-morrow, yet he would correct me in an error, and have the magnanimity to forgive me for a crime. In short, my lord, he is the very husband I’ve been pining for this five-and-twenty years, and, my lord, let me tell you in confidence that this is the husband that I am going to marry an I must burn Newgate to the ground to achieve the consummation. He’s as sparkling as the sunshine, and keen as the shrewd east wind.”
“But insufficient in his pedigree,” my lord groaned, and it was really ridiculously piteous to witness his drawn white countenance.
“My dearest Bab,” says he, directly, and with a simple gentleness that was appealing, “pray allow me to give you a little counsel. I pray you for heaven’s sake dismiss this folly! I beg you to abstain from so terrible an error.”
“Papa,” says I, curtly, “I have a chin.” And out I jutted it, and dipped my forefinger in the dimple in it, which dimple is worth about two thousand sighs a year, they tell me.