Strange our names should be alike!
She was the first at the meeting. I ensured this, delaying my chair at the
corner of Kidder Street till I saw her enter.
The room was small and poorly decent, and her hoop and mine filled it. She
curtseyed low, as did I, and though she aimed at composure, I could see
her lips work. The line between her brows was eight years deeper, her face
pale, the bloom faded, and her mouth droopt. Had she been any other, I had
pitied her. His friendship is fatal to my sex, though I have wore it like
an honour. For me, I was composed. It's not for nothing I have spent my
life in that school--she was a newer pupil.
Being seated, I asked her to favour me with her commands, and she came
straight at the business with a kind of directness pitiable enough.
"Madam, all the world talks of the goodness of Mrs Johnson. I am not long
a resident of these parts, but am no stranger to your merits. 'Tis my
confidence in them causes this explanation. May I ask pardon for plain
speaking?"
"Madam, if the subject is one I can admit of, speech cannot be too plain."
"So I have been told. Accept me therefore as a plain-dealer, Madam, and
have the goodness to read what I cannot speak. But first,"--she put her
hand to her throat as if she might swoon, and so closing her eyes for a
moment, opened them clearly on me,--"Madam, between a certain gentleman
and myself have been love-passages tending, as I believed--hoped--to
marriage. A passion that, with due regard to honour, hath been the ruler
of my life hath brought me to Celbridge, as I did think for the happiness
of both. Being arrived, I have the happiness to see this gentleman often,
and he hath had the goodness to say that no person hath ever been so
loved, honoured, esteemed, ADORED by him as your humble servant. Yet I am
told that a former attachment doth so constrain his honour that little can
be hoped."--(Her voice broke.) "Madam, will you read this paper, and say
Yes or No?"