“Acquitted, acquitted, honourably acquitted by general acclamation,” cried Mr. Beaumont.
“Acquitted by a smile from Amelia, worth all our acclamations,” said Mrs. Beaumont.
“Captain Walsingham,” said Miss Hunter, “did the lady come to England and go to London in a Spanish dress and long waist?”
She spoke, but Captain Walsingham did not hear her important question. She turned to repeat it, but the captain was gone, and Amelia with him.
“Bless me! how quick! how odd!” said Miss Hunter, with a pouting look, which seemed to add—nobody carries me off!
Mr. Beaumont looked duller than was becoming.
Mrs. Beaumont applied herself to adjust the pretty curls of Miss Hunter’s hair; and Mr. Palmer, in one of his absent fits, hummed aloud, as he walked up and down the room,
“‘And it’s, Oh! what will become of me?
Oh! what shall I do?
Nobody coming to marry me,
Nobody coming to woo.’”