“Why, yes, miss. He has done you the honour to ask you of me in marriage, and I desire you’ll entertain him as your future spouse.”
Was I very saucy, Amelia? I did not design to be so, but the words escaped my lips. “But, dear sir, I can’t!” I cried.
“And why not, miss, pray?”
Now here, Amelia, was your poor Sylvia in a pretty confusion. Why not, indeed? Even to myself I could not produce any reasons; I could only feel them.
“Sure it’s impossible, sir. I never dreamt—— The gentleman is surely a sworn bachelor. I esteem him most highly, I’ll assure you, but any closer tie—— Dear sir, the Captain’s age, his—his wisdom—he could never put up with an ignorant girl like me. Pray, sir——”
I could say no more, and my papa regarded me sternly.
“This charming prudishness won’t weigh with me, miss. I believe I have indulged you excessively, allowing you the whole of the cold weather to make your choice. I vow I never looked to keep you longer than a month, and I wish heartily I hadn’t done it. No, miss; this season of reigning as a queen, and holding all Calcutta in suspense, and setting all the young gentlemen at enmity, has lasted too long, and you may thank me for ending it before you find yourself excelled by the young ladies arriving this year from home. Not that you shall have the chance of calling me unreasonable. If there’s any gentleman in Calcutta that you would honestly prefer to the Captain as a spouse, name him, and I’ll set on foot a treaty with him at once.”
“Dear sir, there en’t one. But won’t you permit your girl——”
“No, miss, I won’t.” I could see by my papa’s face that he was hardening his heart against me. “I won’t have it said that my foolish desire to have your company at home has led me to spoil your chances of marrying. And what’s more, the injurious things that are being said about you demand that you should be married as soon as possible as their best contradiction. Why, it fell to me to-day to reprove a young fool of a writer, who had bribed a Popish priest to marry him to a country-born wench in the Portuguese quarter; and pointing out to him that his proceedings showed he was ashamed of what he was doing, or he would have sought to get married in the church by the Padra like an honest man, he told me that he was not alone in preferring a private wedding, for there was one of my own family that was commonly reported to have done the same. What do you make of that, miss?”
“Oh, sir——” I sobbed, and stopped. “Will he say this everywhere?”