“Well, all I’ve got to say is, that Loff Vaughan has sold his nigger well.”
“Oh, for shame! to use such a word in speaking of the beautiful—the accomplished Miss Vaughan. Come, Thorndyke! I’m shocked at you.”
Thorndyke, by the expression, had hazarded the punching of his head—not by his companion, but by a stranger who stood near.
Herbert curbed his indignation. Kate cared not for him! Perhaps she would not have accepted him even as her champion!
Almost at that same moment Kate, too, was listening to a dialogue painfully analogous. Smythje could not dance all the night with her. Too many claimed the honour of his partnership; and for a set or two she had been forsaken by him—left under the guardianship of the watchful Custos.
“Who can he be?” inquired one of two gentle gossips within earshot of Kate.
“A young Englishman, I have heard: a relative of Vaughans of Mount Welcome; though, for some reason, not acknowledged by the Custos.”
“That bold girl appears willing enough to acknowledge him. Who is she?”
“A Miss Jessuron. She is the daughter of the old Jew penn-keeper, who used to deal largely in blacks.”
“Faugh! she is behaving as if she belonged to a—”