'
'Ah! if I had only thought of it sooner!' she murmured.
'What?' said he.
'Nothing, dearest,' replied Lady Icenway.
The Colonel was the first to comment upon the Churchwarden's tale,
by saying that the fate of the poor fellow was rather a hard one.
The gentleman-tradesman could not see that his fate was at all too
hard for him. He was legally nothing to her, and he had served her
shamefully. If he had been really her husband it would have stood
differently.
The Bookworm remarked that Lord Icenway seemed to have been a very
unsuspicious man, with which view a fat member with a crimson face
agreed. It was true his wife was a very close-mouthed personage,
which made a difference. If she had spoken out recklessly her lord
might have been suspicious enough, as in the case of that lady who
lived at Stapleford Park in their great-grandfathers' time. Though
there, to be sure, considerations arose which made her husband view
matters with much philosophy.
A few of the members doubted the possibility of this.
The crimson man, who was a retired maltster of comfortable means,
ventru, and short in stature, cleared his throat, blew off his
superfluous breath, and proceeded to give the instance before
alluded to of such possibility, first apologizing for his heroine's
lack of a title, it never having been his good fortune to know many
of the nobility. To his style of narrative the following is only an
approximation.
Pages:
163
164
165
166
167
168
169
170
171
172
173
174
175
176
177
178
179
180
181
182
183
184
185
186
187