“Only so-so. I’ll be bound she costs Mr Freyne more than ever she brought with her. But as to her debts of honour, she borrows the money to pay ’em from Menotti. What consideration he is to receive you can guess as well as I.”
“But this has been going on a great while, miss—before we landed.”
“So it has. I hadn’t thought of that.” Miss Hamlin looked thoughtful. “But at least we can guess a portion of the consideration. The rest we may discover some day. At any rate, keep the secret carefully. It may help you yet. And now let us illumine the company with the splendour of our presence.”
But as we passed along the varanda, Miss Hamlin slipped suddenly into a small closet where Mr Hamlin keeps his boots and whips, and sat down upon a bench that stood there.
“Come, miss,” she said to me, as I looked at her in surprise, “you must be love’s messenger, and fetch me Mr Hurstwood here. He shall know of the punishment in store for him, and if he show the slightest sign of hesitation, why, he shall have his congé, and no one the wiser.”
I could not help smiling to myself to see Miss Hamlin giving way to the tremors and apprehensions natural to a young woman on such an occasion, and seeking to avoid the possibility of finding Mr Hurstwood backward in acceding to her wishes in the presence of the general company, but I went willingly enough to seek the happy man. There was a good few people already in the saloon, and Mrs Hamlin was looking excessively flurried and uneasy.
“My niece han’t changed her mind, miss, has she?” she asked me, eagerly.
“Oh no, madam. She is most excellently well disposed towards Mr Hurstwood.”
“I’m glad of it. The fact is, my dear miss, I felt it my duty to give the gentleman a slight hint of the happiness that might be coming his way—nothing clear, of course, but just sufficient to let him set about getting his house in order. Young creatures don’t think of that sort of thing, but Charlotte would have been fairly put about without the new table equipage and the chaise and pair of horses that I hear he has been buying. After that I should never have held up my head again if she had sent him about his business.”
The next person that stopped me was Mr Hamlin, who seemed—positively, Amelia, he did—ready to burst with the greatness of the secret. When I catched sight of him he was exciting the wonder of his guests with promising them a diversion of quite a new sort, and hinting, with many nods and winks, at the extraordinary great surprise they should shortly receive. When he saw me, breaking away from those who surrounded him—