MISS P.--You mistake me, sir. What I wished to speak of was the fact
which this gentleman has no doubt communicated to you--that I danced on
the stage for three months.
MILLIKEN.--Oh, yes. Oh, damme, yes. I forgot. I wasn't thinking of that.
KICKLEBURY.--You see she owns it.
MISS P.--We were in the depths of poverty. Our furniture and
lodging-house under execution--from which Captain Touchit, when he came
to know of our difficulties, nobly afterwards released us. My father was
in prison, and wanted shillings for medicine, and I--I went and danced
on the stage.
MILLIKEN.--Well?
MISS P.--And I kept the secret afterwards; knowing that I could never
hope as governess to obtain a place after having been a stage-dancer.
MILLIKEN.--Of course you couldn't,--it's out of the question; and may I
ask, are you going to resume that delightful profession when you enter
the married state with Mr. Howell?
MISS P.--Poor John! it is not I who am going to--that is, it's Mary, the
school-room maid.
MILLIKEN.--Eternal blazes! Have you turned Mormon, John Howell, and are
you going to marry the whole house?
JOHN.--I made a hass of myself about Miss Prior. I couldn't help her
being l--l--lovely.
KICK.--Gad, he proposed to her in my presence.
JOHN.--What I proposed to her, Cornet Clarence Kicklebury, was my heart
and my honor, and my best, and my everything--and you--you wanted to
take advantage of her secret, and you offered her indignities, and you
laid a cowardly hand on her--a cowardly hand!--and I struck you, and I'd
do it again.