next room, and Eliza had thrown her arms round her friend's neck, and given way to the burst of tears which had been gathering during the whole scene, while she said, "Never mind them, dear Miss Forrester, it is all ill-nature, and they had much the worst of it at last."
And so they had: there never was a more discomfited set of people, barring La Grange, who considered himself in high luck at having witnessed such a scene: it was an incident quite unmatched in his English recollections, and he was only longing to slip away, and write it down before he lost "the idiom" of Miss Forrester's expressions. Lord Beaufort was completely overpowered; even Lady Portmore was annoyed, for though she knew she could never be in the wrong, she thought she might have been more in the right if she had taken Mary's part more decidedly: but she was the first to speak. "Well, this is very unlucky."
"Very," said Ernest.
"Deuced unlucky," said La Grange, who was learned in vulgar English expletives.
"I hate the sort of thing," said Lady Portmore, "because, though I said nothing, Mary might think I did, and it will make such a tracasserie."
"Come, Beaufort, speak up," said Ernest, patting him on the shoulder.
"I cannot," said Lord Beaufort, rising and leaning his head against the chimney-piece. "It's a bad business."
"It certainly is," said Lady Portmore; "and those sort of scenes take away one's presence of mind so, or else I would have explained it all to Mary at once."
"It was very fine though: Mees Forster resembled very much Pasta, in Medea, at that grand moment when she says 'lo!'" added La Grange.
"Can't you send him away? " whispered Lord Beaufort to Lady Portmore.
