“Was my Lady Barbarity ever taunted with her gentle-hearted nature?”
It was so difficult to have the laugh of him, that I began to admire the agility with which he generally contrived to have the laugh of me. The fact was that the rogue had an instinct that penetrated much too far. He knew better than I could tell him that he had caught a gaily-painted butterfly and had stuck it on a pin. His wanton fingers itched to twirl that pin to remind, I suppose, the gaudy, flimsy creature of its strange captivity.
“Bab,” Miss Prue says, as I was about to retire to my chamber, “your papa trusts that I shall spend not less than a month at Cleeby. When he said that your aunt seemed to grow uneasy in her soul.”
“Poor auntie,” I says, sympathetically; “but Prue, I hope you know what a wretch you are? And the way you eat is positive immodesty. My aunt observed it. As for the way in which you played his lordship, it was too notorious for words. My aunt observed that also. In fact, in half an evening you have so stabbed the dear creature through her sex, that she will ne’er forgive you for it.”
“Pray recite my errors,” says he, flinging himself into an arm-chair, and stretching out his legs and crumpling his petticoats. “Your voice is so musical it will send me to sleep as promptly as a powder.”
He shut his eyes at this and dropped his chin upon his necklace. Nodding to Mrs. Polly I went off to my dressing-room, followed by my maid. But on opening the door to step from one chamber to the other, we heard plain sounds of feet across the corridor and the rustle of departing draperies. ’Twas too dark to distinguish anything, and though we promptly went in the direction of the noise, the cause of it was under cover before we could in any way detect it.
Now I was certain that a spy had been set upon us, and peradventure we had been overheard. Could anyone have listened at the door? ’Twould be fatal had they done so. The masquerader had by no means conducted his share of the conversation in a Prue-like voice; besides, the discussion of certain matters and its general tenour would be quite enough for any eavesdropper to put a name upon the lady’s true identity. Our carelessness had been indeed of the grossest sort; we had not restrained ourselves with one precaution. Low tones, an occasional eye upon the door, the selection of a proper topic, and there had been nought to fear from anybody. But as it was we were probably undone. Our own incaution was indeed bitterly to blame. In my chamber I let Emblem see the darkness of the whole affair, and gave her freely of my fears; also scolded her so sharply for our accident that the frightened fool began to weep like anything. But there was one point in her behaviour that both pleased and annoyed me. When I told her that if it was verily a spy who had been at the keyhole our sprightly Prue would dance at Tyburn shortly, Mrs. Polly gave a little gasp and a little cry, let fall the hair-brush she was wielding on my head, and burst out in new tears, while her cheeks turned to the colour of my shoulders.
“Oh, your la’ship!” she blubbered, with a deal of tragicality, “say not so.”
“Simpleton,” says I, sternly. “I shall begin to think you regard this beggar—this rebel—this adventurer—almost like a brother if you so persistently bear yourself in this way when I mention quite incidentally, as it were, his proper and natural destination.”
“He hath most lovely eyes, your ladyship,” says she, and wept more bitterly.