“Thank you, dear Miss Peggy,” I replied, returning her smiling courtesy. “The epigram’s wound is easily healed. Is it true that you are yourself the author?”
“O Lord, no!” she replied. “I am but a poor poet, and could not for the world write or say anything to wound another woman’s feelings.”
“She would not, indeed, dear Kitty,” cried Nancy, who was with me. “It is not true—though you may hear it so stated—that Miss Peggy said yesterday on the Parade that your father was only a curate, and that you made your own stockings. She is the kindest and most generous of women. We think so, truly, dear Miss Peggy. We would willingly, if we could, send you half-a-dozen or so of our swains to swell your train. But they will not leave us.”
Was there ever so saucy a girl?
Miss Peggy bit her lips, and I think she would have liked to box Nancy’s ears there and then, had she dared. But a few gentlemen were standing round us, laughing at Nancy’s sally. So she refrained.
“O Miss Nancy!” she replied, trying to laugh, “you are indeed kind. But I love not the attentions of men at second-hand. You are welcome to all my cast-off lovers. Pray, Miss Pleydell, may I ask when we may expect his lordship back again?”
“I do not know,” I replied. “Lord Chudleigh does not send me letters as to his movements or intentions.”
“I said so,” she replied, triumphant for the moment. “I said so this morning at the book-shop, when they were asking each other what news of Lord Chudleigh. Some said Miss Pleydell would surely know: I said that I did not think there was anything between his lordship and Miss Pleydell: and I ventured to predict that you knew no more about his movements than myself.”
“Indeed,” said Nancy, coming to my assistance. “I should have thought you were likely to know more than Kitty.”
“Indeed, why?”