" These little compliments
were so usual among them that at the present moment they excited no
great danger. "There's his letter. I suppose you had better read
it." And she chucked the document to her mother.
"It is very decided," said Lady Augustus.
"It is the falsest, the most impudent, and the most scandalous
letter that a man ever wrote to a woman. I could horsewhip him for
it myself if I could get near him."
"Is it all over, Arabella?"
"All over! What questions you do ask, mamma! No. It is not all
over. I'll stick to him like a leech. He proposed to me as plainly
as any man ever did to any woman. I don't care what people may say
or think. He hasn't heard the last of me; and so he'll find." And
thus in her passion she made up her mind that she would not yet
abandon the hunt.
"What will you do, my dear?"
"What will I do? How am I to say what I will do? If I were standing
near him with a knife in my hand I would stick it into his heart. I
would! Mistaken him! Liar! They talk of girls lying; but what girl
would lie like that?"
"But something must be done"
"If papa were not such a fool as he is, he could manage it all for
me," said Arabella dutifully. "I must see my father and I must
dictate a letter for him. Where is papa?"
"In London, I suppose."
"You must come up to London with me tomorrow.
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