Mr. Chainmail.—Why, but to throw my hand, my heart, my fortune, at your feet, if—.
Miss Susannah.—If my name be worthy of them.
Mr. Chainmail.—Nay, nay, not so; if your hand and heart are free.
Miss Susannah.—My hand and heart are free; but they must be sought from myself, and not from my name.
She fixed her eyes on him, with a mingled expression of mistrust, of kindness, and of fixed resolution, which the far-gone inamorato found irresistible.
Mr. Chainmail.—Then from yourself alone I seek them.
Miss Susannah.—Reflect. You have prejudices on the score of parentage. I have not conversed with you so often without knowing what they are. Choose between them and me. I too have my own prejudices on the score of personal pride.
Mr. Chainmail.—I would choose you from all the world, were you even the daughter of the exécuteur des hautes œuvres, as the heroine of a romantic story I once read turned out to be.
Miss Susannah.—I am satisfied. You have now a right to know my history, and if you repent, I absolve you from all obligations.
She told him her history; but he was out of the reach of repentance. “It is true,” as at a subsequent period he said to the captain, “she is the daughter of a money-changer: one who, in the days of Richard the First, would have been plucked by the beard in the streets: but she is, according to modern notions, a lady of gentle blood. As to her father’s running away, that is a minor consideration: I have always understood, from Mr. Mac Quedy, who is a great oracle in this way, that promises to pay ought not to be kept; the essence of a safe and economical currency being an interminable series of broken promises. There seems to be a difference among the learned as to the way in which the promises ought to be broken; but I am not deep enough in this casuistry to enter into such nice distinctions.”