“Gadso!” he cried. “This is brave indeed. Things are likely to go well at Epsom. We have got back our Kitty, wife.”
Lady Levett was colder. Perhaps she had misgivings on what had been done with me for the last twelvemonth. And then I, who had gone away a simple, rustic maid, was now in hoops, patches and powder.
“Kitty will tell us presently,” she said, “I doubt not what she has done, and under whose protection she is travelling.”
Then I hastened to present Mrs. Esther, who stood aside, somewhat embarrassed.
“Madam,” I said, “I present to you my benefactress and guardian, Mrs. Esther, to whose care I was entrusted by my uncle. Dear aunt, this is my Lady Levett. Mrs. Esther Pimpernel, madam, hath done me the singular kindness of calling me her niece.”
“My niece and daughter by adoption,” said that kind lady. “Your ladyship will be pleased, out of your goodness of heart, to hear the best report of this dear child’s health and conduct. The good principles, my lady, which she learned of you and of her lamented father, have borne fruit in virtues of obedience and duty.”
Both ladies made a deep reverence. Then said Lady Levett—“I assure you, my dear madam, I looked for nothing less in this dear child. From such a father as was hers, could aught but good descend? Madam, I desire your better acquaintance. For Kitty’s sake, I hope we may be friends.”
“Why,” said Sir Robert, “we are friends already. Kitty, thou art grown: thou art a fine girl. I warrant we shall have breaking of hearts before all is done. Epsom Wells was never so full of gallants. Well, breaking of hearts is rare sport, and seldom hurts the men, though they make so great a coil about it in their rhymes and nonsense. But have a care, both of you: sometimes the girls get their own little cockleshells of hearts broken in earnest.”
“I should like to see the man among them all who could break my heart,” said Nancy pertly, laughing.
“Yours?” her father asked, tapping her pretty rosy cheek. “It is such a little one, no one can find it: nevertheless, lass, it is big enough to carry all thy father’s in it, big as he is.”