"I never knew," said another, "that there was a lady in Lynn at all."
"You have been in the card room all the evening," said another. "She danced the last minuet. Where can she be hidden that no one has seen her before? Gentlemen, 'twas a vision of Venus herself, or the fair Diana, in a silk frock and a flounced petticoat, with pearls and diamonds, and precious stones. An heiress? An heiress in Lynn?"
The poet, Sam Semple, who was present, pricked up his ears. The punch had begun to loosen his tongue.
"Gentlemen," he said, "by your leave. You are all strangers at Lynn Regis. Norwich you know, and Bury and Swaffham, and perhaps other towns in the county. But, with submission, Lynn you do not know."
"Why, sir, as for not knowing Lynn, what can a body learn of the place that is worth knowing?"
"You think that it is a poor place, with a few colliers and fishing smacks, and a population of sailors and vintners." The poet took another glass of punch and drank it off to clear his head. "Well, sir, you are mistaken. From Lynn goes forth every year a noble fleet of ships. Whither do they go? To all the ports of Europe. From Lynn they go out; to Lynn they return. To whom do these ships belong? Is a ship worth nothing? To whom do their cargoes belong? Is the cargo of a tall three-master worth nothing? Now, gentlemen, if most of these ships belong to one girl; if they are freighted for one girl; if half the trade of Lynn is in the hands of this girl's guardian; if for twenty years the revenues from the trade have been rolling up—what is that girl but a great heiress?"
"Is that the case with—with sweet Molly?" asked a young fellow who had been drinking before the punch appeared, and now spoke with a thick voice. "Is she the heiress and the Lady of Lynn?"
"She is nothing less," Sam Semple replied. "As for her fortune, I believe, if she wished it, she could buy up half this county."
"And she is unmarried…. Egad!" it was the same young fellow who spoke, "he will be a lucky man who gets her."
"A lucky man indeed," said Sam, "but she is above your reach, let me tell you," he added, impudently, because the other was a gentleman.