"It
ain't that, Minty, I wanter know!"
"It's jist that, Pop; and I ez good ez let 'em know I seed it. I ain't a
fool, if some folks do drop their eyes and pertend to wipe the laugh out
of their noses with a handkerchief when I let out to speak. I mayn't be
good enough kempany--"
"Look yer, Minty," interrupted the blacksmith, sternly, half rising
from his seat with every trace of his former weakness vanished from his
hardset face; "do you mean to say that they put on airs to ye--to MY
darter?"
"No," said Minty quickly; "the men didn't; and don't you, a man, mix
yourself up with women's meannesses. I ken manage 'em, Pop, with one
hand."
Mr. Sharpe looked at his daughter's flashing black eyes. Perhaps an
uneasy recollection of the late Mrs. Sharpe's remarkable capacity in
that respect checked his further rage.
"No. Wot I was sayin'," resumed Minty, "ez that I mayn't be thought by
others good enough to keep kempany with baronetts ez is to be--though
baronetts mightn't object--but I ain't mean enough to try to steal away
some ole woman's darling boy in England, or snatch some likely young
English girl's big brother outer the family without sayin' by your
leave. How'd you like it if Richelieu was growed up, and went to
sea,--and it would be like his peartness,--and he fell sick in some
foreign land, and some princess or other skyulged HIM underhand away
from us?"
Probably owing to the affair of the specimens, the elder Sharpe did not
seem to regard the possible mesalliance of Richelieu with extraordinary
disfavor.
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