A gentleman, passing, with a red rose in his button-hole and silk umbrella in his hand, was taking off his hat to Dolly. Dolly’s face turned red as the rose as she returned the bow, and whispered to her mother that it was the polite stranger. He halted to express a hope that the young lady had not taken cold from the morning shower.
He turned out to be a Mr. Mapping, a traveller in the wine trade for some London house. But, when he was stating this to Mrs. Grape during the first visit paid her (for he contrived to make good his entrance to the house), he added in a careless, off-hand manner, that he was thankful to say he had good private means and was not dependent upon his occupation. He lingered on in Worcester, and became intimate with the Grapes.
Events thickened. Before the next month, August, came in, Mrs. Grape died. Dolly was stunned; but she would have felt the blow even more keenly than she did feel it had she not fallen over head and ears in love with Alick Mapping. About three hundred pounds, all her mother’s savings, came to Dolly; excepting that, and the furniture, she was unprovided for.
“You cannot live upon that: what’s a poor three hundred pounds?” spoke Mr. Mapping a day or two after the funeral, his tone full of tender compassion.
“How rich he must be himself!” thought poor Dolly.
“You will have to let me take care of you, child.”
“Oh dear!” murmured Dolly.
“We had better be married without delay. Once you are my wife——”
“Please don’t go on!” interposed Dolly in a burst of sobs. “My dear mother is hardly buried.”
“But what are you to do?” he gently asked. “You will not like to live here alone—and you have no income to live here upon. Your business is worth nothing as yet; it would not keep you in gloves. If I speak of these things prematurely, Dolly, it is for your sake.”