Tales and Novels — Volume 01: Moral TalesEdgeworth, Maria
General
Tales and Novels — Volume 01: Moral Tales
Edgeworth, Maria
Fiction
"J'ai quitté mon pays et mes amis, Pour jouer de la guitare, Qui va
clin, clin, qui va clin, clin, Qui va clin, clin, clin, clin."
"Ha! my wee wee friend," said Clara Hope, "are you here?--I was just
thinking of you, just wishing for you. By gude luck, have you the weeny
locket about you that the young lady gave you this morning?--the weeny
locket, my bonny boy?"
"Plait-il?" said little Louis.
"He _don't_ understand one word," said Miss Burrage, laughing
sarcastically, "he don't understand one word of all your _bonnys_, and
_wee wees_ and _weenies_, Miss Hope; he, unfortunately, don't understand
broad Scotch, and maybe he mayn't be so great a proficient as you are
in _boarding-school_ French; but I'll try if he can understand _me_, if
you'll tell me what you want."
"Such a trinket as this," said Clara, showing a locket which hung from
her neck.
"Ah oui--yes, I comprehend now," cried the boy, taking from his
coat-pocket a small case of trinkets--"la voilà!--here is vat de young
lady did give me--good young lady!" said Louis, and he produced the
locket.
"I declare," exclaimed Miss Burrage, catching hold of it, "'tis Miss
Warwick's locket! I'm sure of it--here's the motto--I've read it, and
laughed at it twenty times--L'Amie Inconnue."
"When I heard you all talking just now about that description of the
young lady in the newspaper, I cude not but fancy," said Clara Hope,
"that the lady whom I saw this morning must be Miss Warwick."
"Saw--where?" cried Lady Frances, eagerly.
"At Bristol--at our academy--at Mrs. Porett's," said Clara; "but mark
me, she is not there now--I do not ken where she may be now."
"Moi je sais!--I do know de demoiselle did stop in a coach at one house;
I was in de street--I can show you de house."
"Can you so, my good little fellow? then let us begone directly," said
Lady Frances.
"You'll excuse me, sister," said Lady Di.
"Excuse you!--_I_ will, but _the world_ will not. You'll be abused,
sister, shockingly abused."
This assertion made more impression upon Lady Di. Chillingworth than
could have been made either by argument or entreaty.
"One really does not know how to act--people take so much notice of
every thing that is said and done by persons of a certain rank: if you
think that I shall be so much abused--I absolutely do not know what to
say."
"But I thought," interposed Miss Burrage, "that Lady Frances was going
to take you to the play to-night, Miss Hope?"
"Oh, never heed the play--never heed the play, or Clara Hope--never heed
taking me to the play: Lady Frances is going to do a better thing.--Come
on, my bonny boy," said she to the little French boy, who was following
them.
We must now return to our heroine, whom we left on her way to Mrs.
Bertrand's. Mrs. Bertrand kept a large confectionary and fruit shop in
Bristol.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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