“By your honour, then, sir, which is as dear to me as to yourself, and which will be stainless indeed if it receive no more disgrace than I have done it in the past.” I sobbed out this upon my knees, for my papa’s words cut me to the heart. At any other moment he would have sought industriously to comfort me, but now he was walking up and down the chamber with his brows knit and muttering to himself. Presently I could bear it no longer, and throwing myself in his way, catched his feet. “Oh, sir,” I cried, “don’t condemn your girl unheard. What have you ever found in her to justify you in believing she would deceive you? Ask me any question you choose, dear sir, and I’ll answer it on my knees. I have had many things to trouble me of late, but my papa’s countenance has helped me to endure them. If he forsakes me, what refuge have I but death?”
“Don’t talk of things you know nothing about, miss. I do accept your word, and it’s well for you I have no cause to do otherwise. But all Calcutta don’t know you as I do, and what’s to be done to convince ’em? The tale fits only too well with your constant refusal to marry. Why han’t you married, miss? You have had chances enough. I believe there en’t a man of suitable degree in the place but has laid himself at your feet. Pray, what are you waiting for—the Grand Turk or the Great Mogul? I can tell you this, you’ll marry the first honest man that asks you after to-day, and no more pother about it, by——”
“Oh, dear sir, don’t swear it!” I cried, and ventured to cling to his upraised arm. “Pray think that the wicked person who spread this slander may have anticipated this very resolve of yours, and counted on benefiting by it, and so you may hand me over to the most dreadful tyranny. Won’t my papa pity his girl at all?”
“If I was a person of sense,” says my papa, angrily, “I should refuse to be moved by that pert tongue of yours, miss, but I can’t hear my Sally’s girl pleading and remain unmoved. But Miss Sylvia Freyne may be sure of this, that I’ll find her a husband before another week is out.”
Calcutta, April ye 27th.
Oh, my dear, the husband has been found, and who do you think he is? But I’ll tell you the tale as it happened.
“What do you think of Captain Colquhoun, miss?” says my papa to me, as we were taking the air in the garden before breakfast this morning.
“Think of him, sir? Why, what could I think but that he’s a vastly agreeable and respectable person, and my papa’s most esteemed friend?”
“I’m charmed that your opinion’s so favourable, miss. The Captain is coming to see you this morning.”
“Coming—to—see—me—sir?”