“And wee Mr. Harry, he’s a grand little gentleman,” said Lizzie; “and a’s weel, and there’s no cloud in a’ the sky as big as the dear bairn’s little finger, let abee a man’s hand.”
This solemn enumeration of my joys alarmed me considerably. “Do you know of anything that has happened, Lizzie?” I cried with a momentary return of my old fears.
“Naething’s gaun to happen,” said Lizzie, “I’m meaning no to you; naething but the blessing of God that kens a’. It was just to say——”
Here Lizzie came to a dead stop, and cried, the unfailing resource in all difficulties. A perception of the truth flashed upon me as I looked at her.
“Do you mean to say——?” cried I, but got no further in my extreme amaze.
“Eh, it’s no me!” cried Lizzie. “But eh, Menico says——”
Here she stopped again, gave me a frightened look, made an attempt to go on—and finally, startled by a sound in the next room, where Harry was, dropped the apron she had unconsciously pulled off, on the floor, and fairly ran away.
Leaving me thunderstruck, and by no means pleased. I knew if I went and told Harry he would burst into fits of laughter, and there would be an end to all serious consideration of the subject. To lose Lizzie all at once like this, to let the creature go and marry a foreigner! There was something quite unbearable in the thought; what was I to do? A foreigner, and a Catholic, too, and a man twice as old as herself; the girl was mad! The more I thought of it the more distressed I grew. At last I went to seek Aunt Milly, who was the only practicable counsellor. She was in the garden, and I went to seek her there. It was July, and sultry weather. In the hall, now better occupied than it used to be, stood Domenico, in the white suit, vast and spotless, with which he always distinguished himself in summer weather, and which always put me in mind of that dreadful day when the Count Sermoneta first came, in his own name, to the Park. Domenico started forward, noiseless and smiling, to open the door. The action brought before me in a minute our little Chester lodgings, our troubled happy days, our parting, and all the simple kindness this honest fellow had done us. His face beamed through all my recollections of that time, always thus starting forward with the courtesy of the heart. My heart warmed to him in spite of all I had been cogitating against him. Perhaps he divined what it was occupied my thoughts—he followed me out at the door.
“It pleases to the Signora give me the Leezee?” said Domenico, with an insinuating look. “No? no? But what to have done? The Signora displeases herself of me? Wherefore? Because? I not know.”
“I am not displeased,” said I. “You are a very good fellow, Domenico, and have always been very kind. But she is a child; she is not seventeen. What would you do with her in a strange country? She is too young for you.”