XI
LADY ANN SPENWORTH FINDS HER HEART WARMING
LADY ANN (to a friend of proved discretion): Indeed I think I may claim that you have come to the right person. I returned from the Hall only this morning, so I am well primed with news.
And very, very happy. It is only since I have been established once more in the beleaguered city that I have had to remember this menace. No! Not a word or sign! The old clergyman descended on us from Morecambe, protesting that my boy Will had promised to marry his daughter; the daughter came and told a cock-and-bull story which proved her own abandonment without establishing anything against my boy; and, since then, nothing! But one does not choose to be a standing target for that sort of thing. When next Miss Molly Phenton (or Wanton) comes to Mount Street, she may find that Will is safely married to some one else or that I have sent him abroad. I have lost the thread. . . Ah, yes, the great
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