“Well, sir!” demanded my lady. “What was she like?”
“She was ... very beautiful ... beyond description ...” mumbled Mr. Scarsdale, heedless of Lord Aldbourne’s vociferous demands that he would “speak up and be dem’d!”
“Was I there?” questioned my lady relentlessly.
“No, no ... no, indeed, madam.”
“And yet you saw me!” She laughed scornfully and turned her back upon his pitiable discomfiture. “For, O dear friends,” she cried, “dear my loving friends, for once our Monitor doth not lie! Aye, indeed, ’tis all true—every word on’t. I was the serving-wench Mr. Scarsdale was so kind to favour with his notice—’tis all true!”
“Heaven save us!” ejaculated Lady Belinda faintly, then uttered a stifled scream and closed her eyes. “I sink!” she gasped. “I swoon! O my poor Herminia, beware! Think, mem, think what you are saying! Oh, I am shocked.... ’Tis dreadful!”
But here my lady laughed joyously, while all watched her in more or less scandalised amaze—all save Mr. Scarsdale, who was mopping damp brow in corner remote.
Her merriment subsiding, my lady arose and, standing before them, proud head aloft, told her tale.
“Some of you know that I have long entertained the deepest animosity against Sir John Dering, and with just cause——”