—did he, I say, bring the saintly, sighing Tressilian in his train?”
“They came together, by Heaven!” said Foster; “and Tressilian—to speak Heaven’s truth—obtained a moment’s interview with our pretty moppet, while I was talking apart with Lambourne.”
“Improvident villain! we are both undone,” said Varney. “She has of late been casting many a backward look to her father’s halls, whenever her lordly lover leaves her alone. Should this preaching fool whistle her back to her old perch, we were but lost men.”
“No fear of that, my master,” replied Anthony Foster; “she is in no mood to stoop to his lure, for she yelled out on seeing him as if an adder had her.”
“That is good.—Canst thou not get from thy daughter an inkling of what passed between them, good Foster?”
“I tell you plain, Master Varney,” said Foster, “my daughter shall not enter our purposes, or walk in our paths. They may suit me well enough, who know how to repent of my misdoings; but I will not have my child’s soul committed to peril either for your pleasure or my lord’s. I may walk among snares and pitfalls myself, because I have discretion, but I will not trust the poor lamb among them.”
“Why, thou suspicious fool, I were as averse as thou art that thy baby-faced girl should enter into my plans, or walk to hell at her father’s elbow. But indirectly thou mightst gain some intelligence of her?”
