“No—none,” he shook his melancholy wig, the tie at the back of his head wagging sorrowfully.
How was it possible to have any sympathy with so rueful a lover? Why, it made one ridiculous. Everybody said that Harry Temple was in love with me, that I, for the worst of motives, viz., to catch a coronet, refused him, and that he was an excellent match, especially for one who was nothing better than a country parson’s daughter.
“I believe only a curate, my dear,” Peggy Baker would say. “No doubt she lived on bacon fat and oatmeal, and knitted her own stockings. And yet she refuses Harry Temple, a pretty fellow, though studious, and a man whom any of us, gentlewomen born, would be glad to encourage.”
“Oh!” I said to him, “why do you not go? Why do you look reproaches on me?”
“Because,” he replied, “I still love you, unworthy as you are.”
“Unworthy? Mr. Temple, methinks that a little civility——”
“Yes, unworthy. I say that a girl who throws over her oldest friends with the almost avowed intention of securing a title, without knowing anything of the character of the man who bears it——”
“This is too much!” I said. “First, sir, let me know what there is against Lord Chudleigh’s character. Tell me, upon your word, sir, do you know anything at all? Is he not a man of principle and honour?”
“I know nothing against him. I dare say that he is what you think.”
“Well, sir; and, in the next place, how dare you accuse me of deliberately trying to attract my lord? Do you know me so well as to read my soul? Do you know me so well as to be justified to yourself when you attribute such a motive to me?”