Culver Allen.
"Only one week," thought Maria, "and the house will be cleared of a nuisance; but I must play my cards well for this one week, short as it is, or my game will be lost."
She was standing in the drawing-room as she said this, dangling her bonnet by one string, for she had just come in from their afternoon's walk in the park, and from busy, shopping, fascinating Milsom Street.
"Let me only keep things right for one week," she continued, to herself, "and I have him; but I fear it is but a desperate chance."
She was interrupted in these meditations by a brisk rapping at the street-door, and, very soon afterwards, Mr. Stokes made his appearance, and Maria's quick eye immediately saw signs of a proposal in the carefully arranged morning costume, and the very precise tie of his cravat, though, that the same proposal would not be meant for her, she saw with equal readiness.
His first enquiry was—"Whether it was quite true that Miss Lesly was about to leave them?"
"How tiresome," said Maria, "then I suppose every one knows it; and yet we have been so anxious to keep it private."
Here she looked much vexed.
"What has gone wrong, then?" enquired the Squire.