THE OLD, OLD STORY.
Once upon a time there was a sad hubbub in the Independent Chapel at
Sloville. At the monthly tea-meeting of the teachers the prettiest of
the female teachers was missing, much to the grief of the young men, and
to the relief of some plain but pious young women, who had been rather in
the shade since she had come amongst them.
‘Where is Rose Wilcox?’ was the universal query.
‘She’s give up religion, and gone off to the Church, I suppose,’ said the
senior deacon, who was president on the occasion.
‘I fear it is worse than that,’ whispered a young female teacher, who, as
the neighbour of the missing Rose, was supposed to know more of her
movements than anyone else.
‘I can’t say I am surprised; indeed, I may say it is only what I
expected,’ continued the senior deacon, ‘considering how frivolous she
was, and how little her family availed themselves of the means of grace.’
The senior deacon’s words commended themselves to all. Rose Wilcox was
volatile. She was at that critical age when most pretty girls are so—a
time of life always severely criticised by those who have passed it, or
who have been preserved by kindly circumstances from its many dangers,
and who ignore the godly and humane advice of Burns:
‘Then gently scan your brother Man,
Still gentler sister Woman.’
The Rose thus criticised was, perhaps, the prettiest girl in all the
town. Her father had been an officer in the navy, who had married for
love a wife who had nothing to give him but a pretty face and a loving
heart. For a time they lived humbly but comfortably on his half-pay.
They had two children, a son and a daughter. The former grew up wild and
wayward, and was a sad trouble to the family on the occasion of his
visits on shore; for he was a sailor, like his father. Rose was her
father’s companion. He taught her all that he knew himself: to read
Shakespeare; to get a smattering of French; to play a little on the
piano. But he became involved in debt through becoming a surety for an
old friend who had no one else to stand between him and impending ruin,
and that friend, alas! left him in the lurch, or, in other words, handed
him over to his creditors, and he died broken-hearted, leaving his wife
and daughter almost penniless and friendless. The mother then moved to
Sloville, where she managed, with the assistance of her daughter, to
secure a scanty living as milliner and dressmaker—a calling which she had
followed before she became a wife, and where, almost to her alarm and at
the same time much to her pride, she beheld her daughter grow handsomer
and lovelier every day.
The Sloville people said Rose was the prettiest girl in the town, and
they were right. The landlord of the leading hotel would have given
anything to have secured her services at the bar. The snobs of the place
were much given to pester her with their impertinence, while lads of a
lower grade inundated her with valentines and poetical effusions, as
amorous as they were ill-spelt and badly written; and gay Lotharios in
the shape of commercials, far removed from the chastening influences of
their own lawful spouses, said to her all sorts of silly things on their
occasional visits to the town and her mother’s shop.
As the world goes, this was not much to be wondered at. Even in the good
houses round the Park, where all the best families lived, and where
carriage company was kept, it was to be questioned whether any more
attractive young lady could be found than Rose, in spite of the plainness
of her dress and the humble drudgery of her daily life. In no
conservatory in that part of the world were to be seen fairer roses than
those which adorned her cheeks. Her profile was exquisitely classical;
her every action graceful. No lady in the town had such a head of rich
brown hair, none so downy a cheek of loveliest pink, none a blue eye so
lustrous or sparkling, none a more melodious voice. Many a Belgravian
maiden would have given a fortune to have had a hand as delicately
formed, a waist as tempting, a step as elastic, a figure as fair, a
carriage as superb, a smile as irresistible.
Personal advantages, declaim against them as we will—though why we should
do so I know not, since they are the gift of God, and not to be bought
with hard cash—are of inestimable value to a woman. It is no use arguing
with a jury, Serjeant Ballantine tells us, when the plaintiff or
defendant, as the case may be, is a pretty woman, and that it was the
same in the time of the Athenians the case of Phryne is an illustration.
Is it not Balzac who tells us that the faintest whisper of a pretty woman
is louder than the trumpet-call of duty? Nevertheless, a poor girl whose
only dower is her beauty finds it often a perilous gift. Indeed, it was
owing to this very possession that poor Rose had the world at a
disadvantage. She had been spoilt by an indulgent father, and her fond
mother was little fitted to act the part of a guide, philosopher, and
friend in the perplexities and temptations of real life. Her brother was
of no avail, as when at sea he was too far away, and when on shore he had
shown a thoughtlessness and heedlessness which made him a burden rather
than a help.
It was not true that she had given up religion, as was indicated by some
of her associates; the fact was she had none to give up worth speaking
of. She had gone to chapel with her mother as a matter of course, and
being intelligent and good-natured and willing to be useful, she had been
worked into the Sunday-school. It was interesting to her to teach the
young idea how to shoot, and she was fond of children, and so she went as
a Sunday-school teacher. She had left the chapel because it was dark and
dull; because the people were censorious and hard; because the service
was uninteresting; because the preacher was always full of the Jews and
the prophecies, and seemed to have no idea of life as she saw it around
her, and was perpetually railing at a world which seemed to her so bright
and fair; because in her heart, as in that of most of us at her age,
there was a love of pleasure, impetuous and impatient of control.
Nor was it true that she had gone to church, as intimated above. The
fact was, she had summoned up her energies for an awful step for anyone
to take: she had run away from poverty, and hard work, and privation, and
discomfort, and wretchedness, in the hope and belief—alas! too rudely to
be shaken—that henceforth there was to be perpetual sunshine in her path,
and perpetual joy in her heart.
We are all of us too ready to fancy that grapes grow on thorns, and Rose
was no exception to the general rule. She had never read Wordsworth, and
perhaps if she had she would not have understood that grand ode, though
the knowledge did painfully come to her in after-life, where he invokes
Duty as stern daughter of the voice of God:
‘Who art a light to guide, a rod
To check the erring and reprove;
Thou who art victory and law
When empty terrors overawe;
From vain temptations dost set free
And calm’st the weary strife of frail humanity.’
At home for a long time she had been disappointed at her lot. She was
getting tired of hard work and humble fare, ignorant of the fact that God
gives us what is best for us, and that His wisdom is as omnipotent as His
love. She had no companions to guide her aright, and was tired of the
awkward admiration of the homely and lubberly lads with whom she came in
contact. She had taken to reading trashy novels, which had not merely
amused her, but filled her head with nonsense. Greedily she drank in all
their poison. Little by little they broke down all the defences of her
common-sense, as she read of splendid marriages made by simple village
girls, of runaway matches, of wonderful elopements. They taught her how
pleasure was the supreme good, how true happiness consisted in having
wealth, in riding in a brougham, in being dressed in silks and satins, in
wearing diamonds, in going to grand balls; in short, in realizing what at
the meeting-house had been pretty plainly denounced as the pleasures of
sin for a season.
The more the poor girl reasoned on her condition the harder to her it
seemed to be. It must be false what the parsons said; people who had
money, who lived sumptuously, who were arrayed in purple and fine linen,
must be happy—as she herself was when she had a crown-piece in her
pocket, a dress a little smarter than usual, or a bonnet of the latest
fashion. There was the senior deacon, who more fond of money than he?
though he always called it dross and filthy lucre. Then there were the
senior deacon’s daughters and wife; did not they always look a little
more amiable when they had new clothes on? There was the old parson
himself; did not everyone laugh at him because he was poor and shabby,
and had not his long life of poverty reduced him to such a state that he
could not say ‘Bo!’ to a goose? Money meant health, and happiness, and
honour, and power; that was clear. Why, the wickedest men in the town,
who had money, were made more of than the old parson, who had never done
harm to anyone, and whose long record was unsullied. Naturally, this
sort of reasoning made the poor girl a little discontented and out of
sorts.
At times she had all the youthful recklessness of her sex, and not a
little was her mother terrified. A father or a brother might have taught
her a little common-sense, but her only confidante was her mother—as fond
as she was foolish—who felt herself that her daughter had a smile as
sunny, a carriage as graceful, an air as distinguished, and a birth as
gentle, as any of the leaders of society in Sloville. She always
insisted on her daughter’s fitness for something higher. Love levels all
distinctions of rank, and Rose herself was half a Radical—at any rate,
much more of one than pretty women generally are. She was also
ambitious. She had a charming voice, and danced well. Why should she
not shine in society? Why should not she be the star of the ball-room
and the theatre? Why should not she have a brougham and drive in the
parks? Why should not the men fall down and worship at her shrine?
Beauty had a magic power, and wonders were ever being performed daily by
the sorcery of Love. Did not King Cophetua take a beggar-maid to be his
queen?
‘I’ll be a lady yet,’ said the silly girl; ‘I am tired of stitching and
sewing from morn to night; I am tired of this dull street and this dull
town; I’ll be a lady yet, mother,’ she said, ‘and you shall come and live
with me in a fine house in town with plenty of servants to wait on us and
real nice dinners to eat.’
‘Nonsense, girl!’ said the mother. ‘You had better marry the deacon’s
shopman; he is very fond of you, and I am sure, by this time, he could
furnish a house well and keep a wife comfortable.’
Now, as the individual in question was as fat as a porpoise, and very
much the shape of one; as his manners were as plebeian as his appearance,
and as he never had anything to say for himself, Rose regarded him with
infinite disgust, and vowed she’d rather go into a nunnery or die an old
maid.
On the night of the Chartist meeting already referred to, Rose was met by
the individual in question, and as there were so many people about, Rose
graciously accepted the offer of his arm to take her home, much to his
delight and joy. He determined to make the best of his chance. There
are some men who take an ell when you give them an inch. Rose’s rustic
admirer belonged to this class.
Rose became alarmed at his amorous attention, and screamed. That scream
was heard by a gentleman, Sloville’s only baronet, the lord of the manor,
as he was riding past in his brougham. By the clear moonlight he saw
that the girl who stood trembling before him was the girl whose face had
haunted his dreams since he first caught sight of her in Sloville, and in
pursuit of whom he had scoured the town like a hawk ever since. He had
caught sight of her for a moment at the Chartist meeting, and here she
was actually in his power, and needing his aid! How he blessed his
stars, as eagerly, with the most polished air, he offered to drive Rose
home. At first she hesitated, as was natural. If she would get inside,
he would mount the box and drive.
Rose accepted his offer; there could be no harm in that, though she would
not allow the brougham to come nearer her home than the top of the street
in which she lived, for fear of scandal. She accepted the offer, partly
because she wished for the sensation of riding in a brougham like a real
lady, and partly because of her anxiety to get rid of her loutish lover.
Perhaps it had been as well if Rose had ridden up to the door in the
brougham, or had refused the offer of it altogether. As it was, she got
out, and the driver of the brougham would not allow her to go home alone.
If he was proud as Lucifer, he was subtle as the serpent that tempted
Eve. She could not refuse his offer of guardianship, his appearance was
so handsome, and his manner so polished and flattering and deferential.
Surely he could not do her any harm. The offer was one she had not
sufficient self-denial to repel as she ought to have done, as any
well-regulated young lady in superior circles of course would have done.
Alas! Rose was but a poor dressmaker, barely eighteen, an age when to the
young woman clings a good deal of the romantic folly of the girl. She
was the pride of an indulgent mother who never restrained her little
whims, and whose scanty means afforded but little relief to the dull
monotony of her daily life. Rose, of course, was in her seventh heaven.
Her hour of triumph and reward had arrived. Here was the prince who had
come to marry the beggar’s daughter; the gallant knight who was to lead
her out of the prison house of poverty, to reveal to her all the glories
of a world which, after all, looks best at a distance.
There is a tide in the affairs of women as well as men, which, taken at
the flood, leads on to fortune, and Rose believed that the tide was now
in her favour. Here was the chance for which she had been dreaming, for
which she had been prepared by a due course of silly novel-reading.
‘A tall, dark gentleman is in love with you,’ said the gipsy whom Rose
had last consulted on the subject. ‘He will come to you when you least
expect it. He is immensely rich, and will make you handsome presents.
He will take you to London, where he will marry you, and you shall have
horses and carriages, and servants, and music, and wine, and balls, and
will live happy ever after.’
The tall, dark gentleman had come, and he had fallen in love with her.
It amused him in that dull town to have an affair of this kind on hand.
It gave a new zest to his _blasé_ life; the only things he cared for were
pretty faces, and he had spent his life ever since leaving Oxford in
search of them. Now that he had come to the family estate and title; now
that he was Sir Watkin Strahan, of Elm Court, it is not to be presumed
that there was any diminution of zeal in his search; on the contrary, he
pushed it with more zest than ever. In the language of his friends, he
was a devil of a fellow for women, and it was clear to him that this
young rustic beauty would soon fall an easy prey.
The chances were all in favour of the execution of his wicked design, for
he was a cruel man, in spite of his youth and handsome face and figure, a
polished gentleman, yet venomous and dangerous as a cobra or a wolf. He
was now given up to one pursuit, the ruin of this fair young girl, on
whom, in an evil moment, he had cast a longing eye; and poor Rose thought
him a model gentleman! He had no scruples of conscience when his fancy
was aroused. All he cared for, all he thought of, was himself. Pleasure
was to be had, regardless of the cost to himself, of the misery to
others. In a rich and old community like ours the number of such men is
immense, and the mischief they do no tongue can tell. In our streets by
night we see the ruin they have wrought.
‘I am mad after that girl,’ said Sir Watkin to a friend one day. ‘I have
made her presents of all kinds; I have followed up every chance; I have
promised even to marry her, and yet she keeps me at arm’s length. She is
a regular Penelope. It seems years since I first saw her.’
‘Nonsense!’ said his friend—an old rake of the Regency, to whom all women
were mere childish toys—‘she can’t resist you. You are bound to win her.
She is only a little more artful than others of her class.’
‘I wish it were so. I almost despair; and that makes me the more
determined she shall be mine. I was never disappointed yet.’
‘Courage, mon ami,’ was the reply. ‘Such a little beauty is not to be
caught in a day. Take the advice of an old soldier. You are too
cautious. You must carry her by a grand _coup de main_.’
Alas! an opportunity soon occurred. There was to be a grand horse-race a
few miles off. Rose had never seen one, and wished to go. She had let
herself be taken there by the Baronet. She was very sorry she had agreed
to the arrangement, but it was too late to draw back, and she made an
excuse to her mother for her temporary absence. After the race there was
a grand dinner, followed by a ball. The poor girl had hardly the heart
to refuse, and, indeed, she was too far from home to go back alone,
though the agreement was that she was to be taken back immediately the
race was over. This part of the programme the Baronet never intended to
put in execution, and he made some excuse or other for its
non-fulfilment, which she was obliged to accept. Off her guard with
excitement and wine yet not without misgivings of heart, she was
persuaded to accompany the party back to London. In her sober moments
she would never have done such a thing, but she was surrounded by men and
women who laughed at her scruples and overcame her objections. Hardly
knowing what she was about, she—a dove, innocent and unprotected—was
borne by the vultures to town.
For the first time she had tasted of the charmed cup, and she found it
pleasant. She felt sorry for her mother, to whom she wrote a hasty note,
but without giving her any address, telling her not to be alarmed at her
absence, stating that she was staying with some kind friends, and that
she would soon let her know further particulars, which she felt sure
would please her. She was to stay at the house of a real lady, who was
to take her to see all the grand sights of the town. Her spirits rose to
the occasion, and, dressed magnificently in the latest fashions, she
found some kind of enjoyment in the gay company she kept, in riding in a
brougham, in going to the theatre and the opera, in finding herself in a
new world, where she was received with a favour never extended to her in
the tamer circles of Sloville. She felt that she had made a wonderful
start in the world, and how wrong were they who spoke of its pleasures as
transitory and of little worth.
‘That was the world for her,’ said the Baronet, whose demeanour was at
times most kind and considerate, and who treated her with the respect due
from a gentleman to a lady, though occasionally he assumed a boldness
which brought the hot blood to her cheek and filled her with alarm.
Once upon a time, it is said, an old Scotch beadle, with the astute
utterance of his class, went a-courting. ‘Jeannie,’ said he, as he took
the object of his affection into the parochial cemetery, and pointed to
some graves in a remote corner, ‘that’s whaur my people lie. Would ye
like to lie with them?’ Jeannie answered in the affirmative, and the
happy pair soon became man and wife. In the same way the Baronet threw
open to the dazzled eyes of this fatherless country girl all the usual
resorts of the gay world in all their pomp and glory, and she was
delighted, as she had not the experience to tell her how much was tinsel,
how little of it was real, how much of it was selfishness, and nothing
more. Her heart warmed towards her benefactor. Confident in her beauty
and his goodness of heart, she feared no harm. In the circle in which
she moved she achieved a complete success. The women were very envious,
and the men were as foolish as most men are where a pretty woman is
concerned.
Young people think little of what is felt for them by their fathers and
mothers. The cynic may say, ‘Why should they? I did not bring myself
into existence; and what has life done for me but to make me toil for
labour that profiteth not, to clothe me with a carcase that shall soon be
dissolved in death, to give me a mind that utterly, after all its
endeavour, fails to understand even what passes under my very nose, to
say nothing of the mysteries which lie around.’ But most of us feel,
nevertheless, that our fathers and mothers have claims on us that we can
never sufficiently repay them for—the care and love which rocked us in
the cradle, which gave joy and happiness to our early homes, which
guarded us in youth, which helped to plant us out in the world—a love the
memory of which lasts as long as life. The worst of it is that
frequently we do not feel this till it is too late, till we can make no
ear that it would rejoice to listen to such with rapture is stilled by
the cold hand of death. I can never forget a picture of a girl weeping
at her mother’s grave. It was an illustration to one of Jane Taylor’s
simple poems, as follows:
‘Oh, if she would but come again,
I think I’d vex her so no more.’
In her new circle Rose had that natural feeling. It was hard for her to
live without her mother. That mother might be ill; that mother she knew
to be lonely and poor, and in need of her society and aid. It was her
duty, she felt, to be by that mother’s side. She intended to return, if
not to-day, at any rate to-morrow; to tell her mother all, how,
notwithstanding appearances, she was innocent as when she slept under
that mother’s roof. But the difficulty was to go back. Her mother would
believe her story, but nobody else would; and all her little world would
look at her in scorn. She could not face that little world that seems to
us so big. What was she to do? Like too many of us in emergencies, she
did nothing, and was overcome by the circumstances in which she had
weakly allowed herself to be placed.
Yet Rose was not happy in her heart of hearts, and all the while an inner
sense of fear, of something sad and sorrowful to come, restrained her
natural light-heartedness. Scandal had been busy with her name in her
native town. She could not ask, as she had done in her early days, the
blessing of God on her life. But she had burnt her boats, and for her
there was no return. She was clever, and was determined to cultivate her
powers. All her mornings were spent in hard study. She had masters who
made up for the defects of early education. The Baronet, who had left
London for a while on a shooting tour in North America, was to return,
and, of course, would marry her in due time; and then her fair fame would
be vindicated, and her mother’s heart would beat for joy. She was a born
actress, and her chief delight was to be found in the study of the
leading actors and actresses on the stage. Her musical talent was of a
high order, and she had a knack of picking up foreign languages that made
her the wonder of the extremely bad set in which she lived. She was
always busy, always in a whirl of excitement, and had little time to
think of what she was and whither she was going. She shrank from being
brought face to face with her real self. Whenever she did so she found
she really had gained but little, after all. It is true she was not
vicious, but, then, she had grown hard and worldly, and that is little
better in the Court of Conscience. Often she longed for her early home,
her mother’s side, her life of daily drudgery, the God of her early
youth.
Very suddenly a change came. Sir Watkin Strahan had left England, not
for a shooting tour in North America, as it had been understood, but on
account of pecuniary embarrassments, brought on by his extravagant
habits. It was hinted that he was about to marry a fortune, ‘but that
matters little,’ said the informant to poor Rose; ‘he loves you and you
love him. The hard necessities of his situation will compel him to go
through the form of matrimony with another, but that is no reason why you
two should not be virtually man and wife.’ The Baronet said as much in
the impassioned letters which he sent to Rose. He had lost, he regretted
to say, heavily on the turf and at play. He had made some unfortunate
speculations on the Stock Exchange. He had travelled to repair his
losses at Homburg, and Baden, and Spa, and there he had made matters
worse. His friends had insisted on his getting married, promising
pecuniary assistance if he did. They did more. They found out for him a
fitting heiress. A rich merchant had an only daughter whom he was
willing to part with for a consideration—that she should be called my
lady. As the lady was anxious for a title, and the gentleman was equally
anxious to finger her cash, there was little reason for delay. Indeed,
it was felt on all sides that the sooner the business was settled the
better. The lady and gentleman had met, and been mutually satisfied with
one another. The Baronet, so proud of his title, had sold himself for a
mess of pottage. That was a very shabby thing to do; but he did
something still shabbier, he implied that to Rose it would make no
difference—that she would still be the dearest object to his heart. Poor
girl! she felt the insult bitterly.
‘It was the way of the world,’ said her new friends. ‘It was only what
she need expect. She must have been a fool to think that it would be
otherwise.’ So said her London friends to her. Well, she owned she had
been a fool. She had never meant to be a rich man’s mistress. The
Baronet had overwhelmed her with his wealth and magnificence. He had
treated her with such consideration that she never expected anything from
him other than what was right and honourable, and she had been prepared
to give him all she could in return—her heart. Further than that she
could never go. She would never be what he wished her to be for all his
wealth. Her dream was over, and she woke to find herself helpless,
friendless, poor, and alone. It was a bitter awakening for her. It
would have broken her heart, and ruined her life, had it not been for her
youthful pluck, and spirit, and pride. The man of the world who believes
woman to be as bad as himself, who quotes Pope and tells us that every
woman is at heart a rake, will tell me I have drawn an unreal girl. I
tell him there are thousands of such in the homes of the poor, and it is
because there are such that England is still a nation great and grand.
But to return to our heroine.
When the dishonourable proposal was made to her—a proposal which she
could not at first understand, veiled as it was in artful language—all
her pride was in arms, her anger was aroused, and her love was turned to
hate. In her wrath she left the house, leaving behind her letters,
books, jewellery, dresses, everything that had been given her, and,
dressed in the simple style of her former life, she went out into the
world shedding bitter tears, and not knowing where to go. Sad and mad,
she walked the streets of London alone—streets in which it is more
dangerous for a pretty girl to walk along, and at night, than it would be
among Kaffir or Hottentots. She had given no one any intimation of her
going, or as to what her intentions were. She had escaped from the
destroyer, that was enough for her. A stranger to London, she wandered
wearily about, till she came to a street with a blaze of light streaming
from the shop windows on every side, crowded with cabs and carriages,
whilst the pavement was so filled up as to render locomotion almost
impossible.
What she saw struck her with astonishment and horror. She had never
heard of such a thing, and did not believe it possible. It was night,
and yet the place was as busy as if it were day. There were women in
full dress from the adjacent theatres, other in couples or hanging on the
arms of men, who might have been officers in the army and navy or members
of the swell mob. There were similar parties in hansoms and broughams.
Intermixed with them were beggars, and pickpockets, and swindlers, and
outcasts, and all the riffraff of a London street. Rose watched the
broughams, and saw them setting down their inmates at a building which
bore to her a name of no meaning. She watched awhile, and then,
advancing to the door and paying her shilling, found herself in a dancing
casino of a rather superior character. The walls were lined with seats
on which men and women were seated. There was a bar at one end at which
a good deal of chaffing and smoking and drinking were going on. Up in
the gallery was a German band, and, as they played, some danced, while
others looked on. Poor Rose was frightened beyond description at the
appearance of all around her. The air was full of oaths and laughter,
and all were gay, gay as wine could make them, from Lord Tom Noddy
drinking himself into _del. trem._, to the last ticket-of-leave from Her
Majesty’s jails. Rose had never seen so many vagabonds collected
together under a roof before, and they were all gay—the painted harlots,
the City men, the Jew money-lenders, the clerk who had come to spend the
proceeds of his latest embezzlement, the scheming M.P., the jockey from
Newmarket, the prize-fighter from Whitechapel, the greenhorn from the
Universities of Oxford and Cambridge. Pulling her veil over her face,
Rose stood in a corner by herself, trembling and alone, afraid to remain,
yet afraid to go away, fearing she might be stopped. Already she found
herself remarked on and pointed at; already she had seen in the crowded
and heated room more than one of the boon companions of her quondam
lover. What was she to do? She had never dreamt of such awful
degradation as she saw there. She had never believed in its existence.
She thought such a place would have never been tolerated by the police,
and impossible in a Christian land. Men jeered at her, as she stood with
the hot blood crimsoning her cheek, while the made-up women around
seemed, to her, grinning over her impending fall. Was she to become one
of them—to renounce all modesty and virtue, to drink of the wine-cup
offered her on every side, in the delirium of the hour to enlist in the
devil’s service, to put on his livery and to take his pay? Well, she was
poor, but not so poor as all that—as long as she had the use of her
senses. Better poverty itself than a life of shame. For awhile she
stood dazed and frightened, forgetting where she was, and that all eyes
were upon her. Presently she was recalled to herself by a gentleman
coming up and asking her to dance. She refused.
‘Then what the d--- are you here for?’ was his rough reply.
She turned away speechless—horror-struck—especially as she saw the
amusement of the half-tipsy bystanders.
‘A deuced fine girl, upon my word!’
‘Fresh as Hebe,’ said another.
‘Artfulness itself,’ was the remark of another.
‘Yes; that virtuous air is all put on,’ said one of the women present.
‘You may depend upon it she is no better than she should be, although she
looks so shy.’
‘Yes; a very promising filly,’ said the last speaker’s male friend.
‘I’ve half a mind to make up to her myself.’
‘You had better stay where you are, old man,’ replied his female friend,
as she gave him a fond caress.
Poor Rose knew by their looks that they were talking at her, and she
trembled from head to foot. Oh that she could hide herself, that she
could get out of the room! but, no, that was impossible.