"Oh, you silly, silly thing!" she cried; and before Sophia could prevent her, she had cast her arms round her neck, and was hugging her in a paroxysm of mirth: "Oh, you dear, silly old thing! And it's only a week since you eloped yourself!"
"I!" Sophia cried, enraged by the ungenerous taunt. And she tried fiercely but vainly to extricate herself.
"Yes, you! You! And were married at Dr. Keith's chapel! And now how you talk! Mercy, ma'am, butter won't melt in your mouth now!"
"Lady Betty!" Sophia cried, in a cold rage, "let me go! Do you hear? Let me go! How dare you talk to me like that? How dare you?" she continued, trembling with indignation. "What has my conduct to do with yours? Or how can you presume to mention it in the same breath? I may have been foolish, I may have been indiscreet, but I never, never, stooped to----"
"Call it the highway at once," said the unrepentant one, "for I know that is what you have in your mind."
Sophia gasped. "If you can put it so clearly," she said, "I hope you have more sense than appears from the--the----"
"Lightness of my conduct!" Lady Betty cried, with a fresh peal of laughter. "Oh, you dear, silly old thing, I would not be your daughter for something!"
"You dear, don't you Lady Betty me! A highwayman? Oh, it is too delicious! Too diverting! Are you sure it isn't Turpin come to life again? Or Cook of Barnet? Or the gallant Macheath from the Opera? Why, you old dear, the man is nothing better nor worse than a--lover!"
"Well, yes--a lover," Lady Betty repeated, lightly enough; but to her credit be it said, she did blush at last--a little, and folded her handkerchief into a hard square and looked at it with an air of--of comparative bashfulness. "Dear me, yes--a lover. He followed us from London; and, to make the deeper impression, I suppose, made a Guy Fawkes of himself! That's all!"
"Yes, all, all, all!" Lady Betty retorted, ridding herself in an instant of her penitent air. "All! And aren't you glad, my dear, to find that you were frightening yourself for nothing!"
"But who is he--the gentleman?" Sophia asked faintly.
"Oh, he is not a gentleman," the little flirt answered, tossing her head with pretty but cruel contempt. "He's"--with a giggle--"at least he calls himself--Mr. Fanshaw."
