Your engagement, I believe, was
quarterly, and I must beg of you to consider it canceled."
Miss Bennett turned red and pale; the offensive tone sank into one
pitifully weak and cringing.
"Oh, Mrs. Grey! don't be hard upon me; I'm a poor governess, doing
my best, and father has a large family of us, and the shop isn't as
thriving as it was. Don't turn me away, and I'll never meet the young
fellow again."
There was a little natural feeling visible through the ultra-humility of
the girl's manner, and when she took out a coarse but elaborately laced
pocket-handkerchief, and wept upon it abundantly, Christian's heart
melted.
"I am very sorry for you--very sorry indeed; but what can I do? Will
you tell me candidly, are you engaged to this gentleman?"
"No, not exactly; but I am sure I shall be by-and-by."
"He is your lover, then? he ought to be, if, as Letitia says, you go
walking together every evening."
"Well, and if I do, it's nobody's business but my own, I suppose; and it's
very hard it should lose me my situation."
So it was. Mrs. Grey remembered her own "young days," as she now
called them--remembered them with pity rather than shame; for she had
done nothing wrong. She had deceived no one, only been herself
deceived--in a very harmless fashion, just because, in her foolish,
innocent heart, which knew nothing of the world and the world's wiles,
she thought no man would ever be so mean, so cowardly, as to tell a
girl he loved her unless he meant it in the true, noble, knightly
way--a lover
"Who loved one woman, and who clave to her"
--clave once and forever.
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