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 with severity, "Mr. Ireton, you will be so good as to let me pass!"

"No, not I! No, not I my dear!" he answered, still lolling at his case. "We must have a little chat together first. 'Tis an age since I have been able to speak with you. I have been confounded discreet, I promise you. I have not told your secret to a soul."

"What secret, Sir?" cried Juliet, hastily.

"Why who you are, and all that."

"If you knew, Sir," recovering her calmness, she replied, "I should not have to defend myself from the insults of a son, while under the protection of his mother!"

"Ha! ha! ha!" cried he. "What a droll piece of dainty delicacy thee art! I'd give a cool hundred, this moment, only to know what the deuce puts it into thy little head, to play this farce such a confounded length of time, before one comes to the catastrophe."

Juliet, with a disdainful gesture, again took her book.