Page:Lady Barbarity; a romance (IA ladybarbarityrom00snai).pdf/215

 *sary. Instinct was sufficient to decide her. She was as likely to rouse good Dame Propriety, or to make her family the source of common conversation, as she was to sit in a pew with a hassock in it, or to listen to a Low Church clergyman.

The countenance of my aunt was something to be seen. Rage laid her livid; but I was almost proud to look at her, for was she not bred so properly that she smiled away like anything? She put her teeth hard upon her lips, and so did bar her anger back, and continued in that pleasant face that cooled my blood by three degrees.

"Very well, Barbara," says she, without the faintest passion, though it had required several seconds to give her this composure, "very well. But if I outlast the century I will not overlook this monstrous conduct. From to-day I disinherit you. And I may say that one portion of my fortune will be diverted into building and endowing a church at St. Giles's in the Fields; the other portion to provide a sanctuary for needy gentlewomen."

Somewhere in the middle of the day I thought the hour a chosen one to finish off the Captain. With such an application had I pursued the gallant man the previous evening, and such his frame of mind, that surely he was suffering even now an ecstasy of sweet pain. Another amorous glance or two would certainly complete him and drown his duty in his desperation. These reflections carried me to the library door. On entering I was met by the Captain's greeting and the presence of an unpro