"Really!"
"Yes, poor lad, but thank God I have a heart—Leave the whiskers as they are, sir?—Yes, and I can feel for the distresses of a fellow creature. Many's the—Your brother—I beg pardon, cousin, will be shaved likewise, sir?—pound I have given away in the name of the Lord. Charley, will you look alive with that soap dish. A pretty boy, sir; is he not?"
"Very. His complexion is like—like a pearl."
Johanna dropped the soap dish, and clasped her hands over her eyes. That word "pearl" had for the moment got the better of her.
CHAPTER LXIX.
TAKES A PEEP AT ARABELLA.
We regret to leave Johanna in such a predicament, but the progress and due understanding of our tale compel us briefly to revert to some proceedings of Arabella Wilmot, a short detail of which can nowhere come in so well as at this juncture. Up to the moment of parting with Johanna, when the latter went upon her perilous interprise, Arabella had kept up pretty well, but from that moment her spirits began to fail. All the romantic feelings which had at first prompted the advice that concentrated Johanna's expedition to Todd's, evaporated before the hard truthful fact that she, Arabella, had led her young friend into a situation of the greatest peril. Each moment added to the mental agony of the young girl; and at length her sufferings became too acute for further dallying with, and wringing her hands, all she could ask herself was—
"What shall I do to save her?—What shall I do to save her?"
Arabella felt that it would kill her to endure the suspense of one hour instead of four-and-twenty; but to whom was she to turn in this sad condition of her feelings? If she went to old Mr. Oakley, what could she expect but the greatest reproaches for leading one so dear to him into such a path of danger; and those reproaches would not be the less stinging on account, probably, of their being only implied, and not spoken. If she appealed to her own friends, it would only be a kind of second-hand mode of appealing to Mr. Oakley, for they, of courses, would go to him.
"Oh, wretched girl that I am," she cried, as she wrung her hands. "What shall I do?—What ought I to do?"
It was very improbable that, in the midst of such a state of feeling as this, Arabella Wilmot should think of the wisest and best thing to do; and yet strange to say, she did. By mere accident the name of Sir Richard Blunt came to her mind. She had heard Colonel Jeffery speak of him; and from common report, too, she knew he was a man who, of all others, was likely, from inclination as well as power and duty, to aid her. The idea of going to him gained strength and consistency each moment in her mind, as good ideas will.