"But there, there, I don't wish
to quarrel with 'ee. I come with an honest proposal for silencing your
Jersey enemies, and you ought to be thankful."
"How can you speak so!" she answered, firing quickly. "Knowing that my
only crime was the indulging in a foolish girl's passion for you with
too little regard for correctness, and that I was what I call innocent
all the time they called me guilty, you ought not to be so cutting! I
suffered enough at that worrying time, when you wrote to tell me of
your wife's return and my consequent dismissal, and if I am a little
independent now, surely the privilege is due to me!"
"Yes, it is," he said. "But it is not by what is, in this life, but by
what appears, that you are judged; and I therefore think you ought to
accept me--for your own good name's sake. What is known in your native
Jersey may get known here."
"How you keep on about Jersey! I am English!"
"Yes, yes. Well, what do you say to my proposal?"
For the first time in their acquaintance Lucetta had the move; and yet
she was backward. "For the present let things be," she said with some
embarrassment. "Treat me as an acquaintance, and I'll treat you as
one. Time will--" She stopped; and he said nothing to fill the gap for
awhile, there being no pressure of half acquaintance to drive them into
speech if they were not minded for it.
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