He lunched at Sewell's shop, he tea'd at
Sewell's, occasionally he dined at Sewell's, off cutlets, followed
by assorted pastry. Possibly, merely from fear lest the affair
should reach his mother's ears, for he was neither worldly-wise nor
vicious, he made love to Mary under an assumed name; and to do the
girl justice, it must be remembered that she fell in love with and
agreed to marry plain Mr. John Robinson, son of a colonial
merchant, a gentleman, as she must have seen, and a young man of
easy means, but of a position not so very much superior to her own.
The first intimation she received that her lover was none other
than Lord C-, the future Earl of --, was vouchsafed her during a
painful interview with his lordship's mother.
"I never knew it, madam," asserted Mary, standing by the window of
the drawing-room above the shop, "upon my word of honour, I never
knew it"
"Perhaps not," answered her ladyship coldly. "Would you have
refused him if you had?"
"I cannot tell," was the girl's answer; "it would have been
different from the beginning. He courted me and asked me to be his
wife."
"We won't go into all that," interrupted the other; "I am not here
to defend him.
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