"Oh! Theodore Fitzhedingham has no occasion to fear a rival," said Martha, pretending to have lost the stitch.
"No! 'Pon my word that's very good of you. Do you really think that Maria Valentine de Courcy will prefer him to every one else?"
"She will be a very foolish, a very ungrateful girl, if she doesn't—for hasn't he loved her ever since she was a child?"
"Well, Martha, you are certainly a very nice, a very affectionate girl; and I may as well put your mind at rest at once by telling you"—
"Sneezum! Sneezum!"
There was old Morgan again kicking at the study door, and holloing Sneezum with all his might. I had taken Martha's hand, and was just going to tell her to make preparations to become Mrs Sneezum in a week or two. I let go her hand, and rushed to the door.
"What the mischief do you want?"
"Why, here's Billy come back again," he said; "won't you come and give a welcome to poor Billy?"
"No; I be hang'd if I do. He has never apologized for pushing me down the steps; tell him to get out of my house; I have not forgot what alarm my accident caused to poor Martha. Don't you remember it, my dear?"
But there sat Martha—sometimes red and sometimes white—with tears in her eyes, and her lips half open, like the picture of St Cecilia.