Page:Cuthbert Bede--Verdant Green married and done for.djvu/72

64 politely filled up the gap of silence with an imitation of King George the Third.

"I really do not know what you mean," said Miss Patty. "If I have said or done anything that has caused you pain, I can assure you it was quite unwittingly on my part, and I am very sorry for it; but, if you will tell me what it was, perhaps I may be able to explain it away, and disabuse your mind of a false impression."

"I am quite sure that you did not intend to pain me," replied Verdant; "and I know that it was presumptuous in me to think as I did. It was scarcely probable that you would feel as I felt; and I ought to have made up my mind to it, and have borne my sufferings with a patient heart." (The Legend again!) "And yet when the shock does come, it is very hard to be borne."

Miss Patty's bright eyes were dilated with wonder, and she again thought of Mr. Verdant Green in connection with champagne. Mr. Poletiss was still taking his pirate through all sorts of flats and sharps, and chromatic imitations of King George.

"But, what is this shock?" asked Miss Patty. "Perhaps I can relieve it; and I ought to do so if it came through my means."

"You cannot help me," said Verdant. "My suspicions were confirmed by your words, and they have sealed my fate."

"But you have not yet told me what those words were, and I must really insist upon knowing," said Miss Patty, who had begun to look very seriously perplexed.

"And, can you have forgotten!" was the reply. "Do you not remember, that, as we came up the hill, I put a certain question to you about Mr. Delaval having proposed and having been accepted?"

"Yes! I remember it very well! And, what then?" "And, what then!" echoed Mr. Verdant Green, in the greatest wonder at the young lady's calmness; "what then! why, when you told me that he had been accepted, was not that sufficient for me to know?—to know that all my love had been given to one who was another's, and that all my hopes were blighted! was not this sufficient to crush me, and to change the colour of my life?" And Verdant's face showed that, though he might be quoting from his Legend, he was yet speaking from his heart.

"Oh! I little expected this!" faltered Miss Patty, in real grief; "I little thought of this. Why did you not speak sooner to some one—to me, for instance—and have spared yourself this misery? If you had been earlier made acquainted with