“Oh, then, let me implore you to pause, sir,” said she, falling on her knees before me; “let me thus entreat of you not to go further in a path so full of danger.”
“Shall I confess, madam,” said I, proudly, “that I do not _see_ these dangers you speak of?”
I thought that on this hint she would talk out, and I might be able to pierce the veil of the mystery, and discover who I was; for though very like my mother, and shorter than my father, I was sorely puzzled about my parentage; but she only went off into generalities about the state of the Continent and the condition of Europe generally. I saw now that my best chance of ascertaining something about myself was to obtain from her the newspaper that first suggested her discovery of me, and I said half carelessly, “Let me see the paragraph which struck you in the 'Courrier.'”
“Ah, sir, you must excuse me, these ignoble writers have little delicacy in alluding to the misfortunes of the great; they seem to revenge the littleness of their own station on every such occasion.”
“You can well imagine, madam, how time has accustomed me to such petty insults: show me the paper.”
“Pray let me refuse you, sir; I would not, however blamelessly, be associated in your mind with what might offend you.”
Again I protested that I was used to such attacks, that I knew all about the wretched hireling creatures who wrote them, and that instead of offending, they positively amused me,--actually made me laugh.
Thus urged, she proceeded to search for the newspaper, and only after some minutes was it that she remembered Miss Herbert had taken it away to read in the garden. She proposed to send the servant to fetch it, but this I would not permit, pretending at last to concur in her own previously expressed contempt for the paragraph,--but secretly promising myself to go in search of it the moment I should be at liberty,--and once more she resumed the theme of my rashness, and my dangers, and all the troubles I might possibly bring upon my family, and the grief I might occasion my grandmother.
Now, as there are few men upon whom the ties of family and kindred imposed less rigid bonds, I was rather provoked at being reminded of obligations to my grandmother, and was almost driven to declare that she weighed for very little in the balance of my plans and motives. The old lady, however, rescued me from the indiscretion by a fervent entreaty that I would at least ask a certain person what he thought of my present step.