“Heyday! a Spanish lady!” said Mr. Palmer, returning slowly to his seat with a fallen countenance. “How’s this?—By St. George, this is unlucky! But how’s this, I say?”
“You did not let us finish our story,” said Mr. Beaumont, “or we should have told you.”
“Let me hear the end of it now,” said Mr. Palmer, sitting down again, and preparing himself with several pinches of snuff. But just at this instant a servant came to say that coffee was ready.
“I will never stir from this spot for coffee or any thing else,” said Mr. Palmer, “till I know the history of the Spanish lady.”
“Then the shortest and best way I have of telling it to you is, to beg you to read this letter, which contains all I know of the matter,” said Mr. Beaumont. “This letter is from young Birch to his parents; we have never heard a syllable directly from Walsingham himself on this subject. Since he reached Lisbon, we have had no letters from him, except that short epistle which brought us an account of his taking the treasure-ship. But we shall see him soon, and know the truth of this story; and hear whether he prefers his Spanish or his English mistress.”
“‘Fore George! I wish this Spanish woman had stayed in her convent,” said Mr. Palmer; “I don’t like runaway ladies. But let us see what this letter says for her.”
The letter is the same that Mr. Beaumont read some time ago, therefore it need not here be inserted. Before Mr. Palmer had finished perusing it, a second message came to say that the ladies waited tea, and that Mrs. Beaumont wished not to be late going home, as there was no moon. Mr. Palmer, nevertheless, finished the letter before he stirred: and then, with a heavy sigh, he rose and said, “I now wish, more than ever, that our captain would come home this night, before I go, and clear up this business. I don’t like this Spanish plot, this double intrigue. Ah, dear me!—I shall be obliged to sail—I shall be in Jamaica before the fifth act.”
“How expectation loads the wings of time!” exclaimed Mrs. Beaumont, as the gentlemen entered the drawing-room. “Here we have been all day expecting our dear Captain Walsingham, and the time has seemed so long!—The only time I ever found long in this house.”
“I should like to know,” said Mr. Walsingham, after a bow of due acknowledgment to Mrs. Beaumont for her compliment, “I should like to know whether time appears to pass more slowly to those that hope, or those that fear?”
Mrs. Beaumont handed coffee to Mr. Palmer, without attempting to answer this question.