The String of Pearls; or, The Barber of Fleet Street — page 32: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

2 THE STRING OF FEARLS, PRR Ree eer nett eet sania and satisfaction to a meeting which she certainly had no evicence to know, might not | be of the most disastrous character. | | She asked herself over and over again if she shonld tell her father what had — occurred, but as often as she thought of doing so she shrank from carrymg out the | mental suggestion, and all the natural disposition again to keep to herself the secret of her happiness returved to her in full force. : | But yet she was not so unjustas not to feel that it was treating her father but slightingly to throw all her sorrows into his lap, as it were, and then to keep from — him everything of joy appertaining to the same circumstances. | This was a thing that she was not likely to continue doing, and so she made up _ her mind to relieve her conscience from the pang it would otherwise have had, by |’ determining to tell him, after the interview in the Temple Gardens, what was its | result ; buf she could not make up her mind to do so beforehand; it was so pleasant | and so delicious to keep the secret all to herself, and to feel that she alone knew | that her lover had so closely kept faith with her as to be only one day behind his | time in sending to her, and that day, perhaps, far froin being his fault. : And so she reasoned to herself and tried to wile away the anxious hours, some- | times succeeding in forgetting how long it was still to sunset, and at others feeling _ as if each minute was perversely swelling itself out into ten times its usual propor- tion of time in order to become wearisome to her. | She had said that she would be at the Temple Gardens two hours before sunset _ instead of one, aud she kept her word, for, looking happier than she had cone | for wecks, she tripped down the stairs of her father’s house, and was about to | leave it by the private staircase, When a strange gaunt-looking figure attracted | her attention. | This was no other than the Rev. Mr. Lupin: he was a long strange-looking man, | and upon this occasion he came upon what he called horseback, that 1s to say, he | was mounted upon a very small pony, which seemed quite unequal to support his — weight, and was so short that, if the reverend gentleman had not poked his legs | out at an angle, they must inevitably have touched the ground. “ Praise the od '? he said: “1 have intercepted the evil one. Maiden, J have | come here at thy mother’s bidding, and thou shalt remain and partake of the © mixture called tea.” | gohanna scarcely condescended to glance at him, but drawing her mantle close around her, which he actually had the impertinence to endeavour to lay hold of, she walked on, so that the reverend gentleman was left to make thebest he could | of the matter. : | “Stop,” he cried, “ stop '? T can well perceive that the devil hasastrone hold | of you: I can well perceive—the lord have mercy upon me! this animal hath some design against me as sure as fate.” | This last ejaculation arose from the fact ;that the pony had flung up his heels | _ behind in a most mysterious manner, | ' “I am afraid, sir,” said a lad who was no more than our old acquaintance, Sam —“ | am afraid, sir, that there is something the matter with the pony.” a) Up went the pony’s heels again in the same unaccountable manner. | ‘God bless me !”’ said the reverend gentleman ; “ he never did sucha thing _ before. I—there he goes again—murder ! Young man, I pray you to help me to get down ; I think I know you; you are the nephew of the goodly Mrs, Pump | ——truly this animal wishes to be the death of me.” At this moment the pony gave such a vigorous kick up behind, that Mr. Lupin was fairly pitched upon his head, and made a complete summerset, alighting with || his heels in the spectacle-maker’s passage; and it unfortunately happened that | ! Mrs, Oakley at that moment, hearing the altercation, came rushing out, and the first thing she did was to fall sprawling over Mr. Lupin’s feet. Sam now felt it time to go; and as we dislike useless mysteries, we may as well explain that these extraordinary circumstances arose from the fact that Sam had brought from the haberdasher’s opposite a halfpenny-worth of pins, and had amused himself by making a pincushion of the hind quarters of the Reverend Mr “=. a = i > ee parce anit Sow timaeinns Pmt comicbooks.com