"I can't help it—business—sudden intelligence. Can you tell me where the village of Wibbelton is?"
"No," said the young lady, and laid the nosegay very quietly in her basket.
"If I should not return before Mr Smith is well enough to go home, will you present my compliments to your sister, and assure her"—
"Oh! she will he very sorry, I dare say," said Miss Monimia tartly, tying the strings of her bonnet, which had again fallen back and shown her beautiful ringlets.
"I wish the flowers were better," continued Frank; "and at some future time, I trust"—
"Oh, the flowers are good enough!" said the young lady. "I think the moss rose is Charles Lambert's favourite, so I have gathered this bunch for him."
You would scarcely have known the cold-voiced, calm-eyed Miss Monimia, to be the playful, graceful hoyden of five minutes before. She made Frank a stately curtsy, and, without farther parley, he hurried down to the village, and ordered the solitary post-chaise of which the Rose and Crown could boast.
"Stay you here," he said to Mr Percy Marvale, "and I will join you in two days if any thing occurs. We may be disappointed again, though the present intelligence seems authentic."
The intelligence which so suddenly altered the destination of Miss Monimia Smith's nosegay, was from one of Frank's Leicestershire correspondents; and was to the effect, that Alice had gone into a situation in the little village of Wibbleton, where she had been securely hidden from all her lover's pursuits for half a year. Wibbelton, he found, was fifteen miles from Bandvale, on the Birmingham road, and merrily away he trotted as fast as the two posters could go.
The news, the air, the motion, that had such an exhilirating effect on Frank Edwards, seemed to be equally efficacious in the case of my old friend Smith. He felt so well on being told of his host's departure, that he was able to move at once; and, without waiting for consultation with the doctor, or even for his carriage, he accompanied his daughter and the indefatigable Percy Marvale across the fields to Howkey on foot.