Page:The Monk, A Romance - Lewis (1796, 1st ed., Volume 1).djvu/26

 and if the lovely Antonia will permit me to be her advocate with him, I doubt not my being able to make a favourable report of her cause."

Antonia raised her blue eyes, and silently thanked him for the offer by a smile of inexpressible sweetness. Leonella's satisfaction was much more loud and audible. Indeed, as her niece was generally silent in her company, she thought it incumbent upon her to talk enough for both: this she managed without difficulty, for she very seldom found herself deficient in words.

"Oh, Segnor!" she cried; "you will lay our whole family under the most signal obligations! I accept your offer with all possible gratitude, and return you a thousand thanks for the generosity of your proposal. Antonia, why do not you speak, child? While the cavalier says all sorts of civil things to you, you sit like a statue, and never utter a syllable of thanks, either bad, good, or indifferent!—"

"My dear aunt, I am very sensible that—"