"I expect my friend and relation in town every hour," said he to her in a low voice; "and then I shall be able to settle with your brother about the sale of Clover-hill. You half promised that you would walk with me this morning." "Not without my brother: excuse me, sir," said the coy lady, withdrawing with the dignity of a princess. "When your friend arrives, for whose advice I presume you wait, you will be able to decide _your_ heart. Mine cannot be influenced by base lucre, or mercenary considerations--Unhand me, sir."

"I will run immediately to the inn, to see whether my friend is come,"

cried Marvel. "Believe me, I am as much above mercenary considerations as yourself; but I have promised not to conclude upon the sale till he comes, and he would take it ill to be sent for, and then to be made a fool of.--I'll run to the Green Man again immediately, to see if he is come."

Marvel darted out of the shop. Wright, during this parley, which lasted but a few seconds, had kept himself snug in his hiding-place, and appeared to the milliner to be wholly absorbed in casting up his bill, in which there was a shilling wrong. He came from behind the door as soon as Marvel departed; and, saying that he would call for his purchases in an hour's time, left the milliner's, took a hackney coach, and drove to the Green Man, where he was now sure of meeting his cousin.

"Thank Heaven! you are come at last," cried Marvel, the moment he saw him. "Thank Heaven! you are come! do not let us lose a moment. If you are not tired, if you are not hungry, come along with me, and I'll introduce you to my charming Alicia Barton."

"I am both tired and hungry," replied Wright: "so let us have a hot beef-steak, and let me sit down and rest myself."

It was the utmost stretch of Marvel's patience to wait for the beef-steak; and he could scarcely conceive how any one could prefer eating it to seeing his charming Alicia. He did not eat a morsel himself, but walked up and down the room with quick steps.

"Oh! my dear Wright," cried he, "it is a sign you've never seen her, or you would eat a little faster."

"Does every body eat fast, who has seen Miss Barton?" said Wright; "then to be sure I should; for I have seen her within this half hour."

"Seen her! Seen Alicia! Seen her within this half hour! That's impossible.--How could you see her? Where could you see her?" "I saw her in your company," rejoined Wright, coolly.

"In my company! How could that be, without my seeing you?--You are making a jest of me."

"Not at all; only take care that you do not make a jest of yourself.

I a.s.sure you that I say nothing but truth: I've seen you and your Miss Barton this very morning: nay, I'll tell you what you said to her; you told her that you could not sell Clover-hill till I came to town."

Marvel stared, and stood in silent astonishment.

"Ay," continued Wright, "you see by this how many things may pa.s.s before a man's eyes and ears, when he is in love, without his seeing or hearing them. Why, man, I was in the milliner's shop just now, standing in the corner behind the door; but you could see nothing but your charming Miss Barton."

"I beg your pardon for being so blind," said Marvel, laughing; "but you are too good-natured to take offence; though you don't know what it is to be in love."

"There you are mistaken; for I am as much in love as yourself at this instant."

"Then I'm undone," cried Marvel, turning as pale as death.

"Why so?" said Wright; "will you allow n.o.body, man, to be in love but yourself? I don't see why I have not as good a right to fall in love as you have."

"To be sure you have," said Marvel, trying to recover himself; "and I can't say but what you deal fairly by me, to tell me so honestly at once. More fool I to send for you. I might have foreseen this, blockhead as I am! but you deal fairly by me, Wright: so I cannot complain, and will not, happen what may. Let him who can win her, wear her. We start fair; for though I have had the advantage of a first acquaintance, you are much the handsomer man of the two; and that goes for a great deal with some ladies, though not perhaps with Alicia Barton."

"There, perhaps, you may find yourself mistaken," replied Wright, with a significant look.

"You don't say so? You don't think so?" cried Marvel, with great emotion. "I say what I think; and, if I may trust a woman's looks, I've some reason for my thoughts."

Marvel took up the tankard which stood on the table, and swallowed down a hasty draught; and then said, though with an altered voice, "Cousin Wright, let him who can win her, wear her, as I said before. I sha'n't quarrel with you if you deal fairly by me; so tell me honestly, did you never see her before this morning?"

"Never, as I am an honest man," said Wright.

"Then, here's my hand for you," said Marvel. "All's fair and handsome on your part. Happen what may, as I said before, I will not quarrel with you. If she was decreed to fall in love with you at first sight, why that's no fault of yours; and if she tells me so fairly, why no great fault of hers. She has encouraged me a little; but still women will change their minds, and I shall not call her a jilt if she speaks handsomely to me. It will go a little to my heart at first, no doubt; but I shall bear it like a man, I hope; and I shall not quarrel with you, cousin Wright, whatever else I do."

Marvel shook Wright's hand heartily; but turned away directly afterwards, to hide his agitation.

"Why now, cousin Marvel, you are a good fellow; that's the truth of it,"

said Wright. "Trust to me: and, if the girl is what you think her, you shall have her: that I promise you."

"That's more than you _can_ promise, being as you say as much in love as I am."

"I say I'm more in love than you are: but what then, I ask you?"

"What then! why, we cannot both have Alicia Barton."

"Very true. I would not have her if you would give her to me."

"Would not have her!" cried Marvel, with a look of joyous astonishment: "but, did not you tell me you were in love with her?"

"Not I. You told it to yourself. I said I was in love; but cannot a man be in love with any woman in this whole world but Miss Barton?"

Marvel capered about the room with the most lively expressions of delight, shook hands with his cousin, as if he would have pulled his arm off, and then suddenly stopping, said, "But what do you think of my Alicia? Though you are not in love with her, I hope you think well of her?"

"I must see more of her before I am qualified to speak."

"Nay, nay, no drawbacks: out with it. I must know what you think of her at this time being."

"At this time being, then, I think, she is what they call a--coquette."

"Oh, there you are out, indeed, cousin Wright! she's more of what they call a prude than a coquette."

"To you, perhaps; but not to me, cousin. Let every one speak of her as they find," replied Wright.

Marvel grew warm in defence of Miss Barton's prudery; and at last ended by saying, "that he'd stake his life upon it, she was no jilt. If she had taken a fancy to you, Wright, she would honestly tell me so, I'm convinced; and, when she finds you are thinking of another woman, her pride would soon make her think no more of you. 'Tis but little she could have thought in the few minutes you were in her company; and it is my opinion she never thought of you at all--no offence."

"No offence, I promise you," said Wright; "but let us put her to the trial: do you keep your own counsel; go on courting her your own way, and let me go mine. Don't you say one word of my being here in York; but put her off about the sale of Clover-hill, till such time as you are sure of her heart."

To this proposal Marvel joyfully agreed; and, as to the time of trial, Wright asked only one week. His cousin then told him the new scheme, from which he expected to make so much: it had been suggested by Alicia's brother. "I am to sell Clover-hill; and, with the money that I get for it, Barton and I are to build and fit up a theatre in Lincoln, and be the managers ourselves. I a.s.sure you, he says, and they all say, I should make a figure on the stage: and Miss Barton whispered, in my hearing, that I should make a capital Lothario," added Marvel, throwing himself into a stage att.i.tude, and reciting, in a voice that made Wright start,

"'Earth, Heav'n, and fair Calista, judge the combat.'"

"Very fine, no doubt," said Wright; "but I am no judge of these matters; only this I am sure of, that, with respect to selling Clover-hill, you had best go slowly to work, and see what the sister is, before you trust to the brother. It is not for my interest, I very well know, to advise you against this scheme; because, if I wanted to make certain of your not coming in for my uncle's legacy, I could not take a better way than to urge you to follow your fancy. For, say that you lay out all you have in the world on the building of this playhouse, and say that Barton's as honest a man as yourself: observe, your playhouse cannot be built in less than a couple of years, and the interest of your money must be dead all that time; and pray how are you to bring yourself up, by the end of the ten years? Consider, there are but seven years of the time to come."

Marvel gave his cousin hearty thanks for his disinterested advice, but observed that actors and managers of playhouses were, of all men, they who were most likely to grow rich in a trice; that they often cleared many hundreds in one night for their benefits; that even, if he should fail to hit the public taste himself, as an actor, he was sure at least, if he married the charming Alicia, that she would be a source of inexhaustible wealth. "Not," added he, "that I think of her in that light; for my soul is as much superior to mercenary considerations as her own."

"More, perhaps," said Wright; but seeing fire flash in his cousin's eyes at this insinuation, he contented himself for the present with the promise he had obtained, that nothing should be concluded till the end of one week; that no mention should be made to Miss Barton, or her brother, of his arrival in town; and that he should have free liberty to make trial of the lady's truth and constancy, in any way he should think proper. Back to his friend the milliner's he posted directly. Miss Barton was gone out upon the race-ground in Captain Mowbray's curricle: in her absence, Wright was received very graciously by the milliner, who had lodgings to let, and who readily agreed to let them to him for a week, as he offered half a guinea more than she could get from anybody else. She fancied that he was deeply smitten with Miss Barton's charms, and encouraged his pa.s.sion, by pretty broad hints that it was reciprocal. Miss Barton drank tea this evening with the milliner: Wright was of the party, and he was made to understand that _others_ had been excluded: "for Miss Barton," her friend observed, "was very _nice_ as to her company."

Many dexterous efforts were made to induce Wright to lay open his heart; for the dyer's lady had been cross-questioned as to his property in Lincolnshire, and she being a lover of the marvellous, had indulged herself in a little exaggeration; so that he was considered as a prize, and Miss Barton's imagination settled the matter so rapidly, that she had actually agreed to make the milliner a handsome present on the wedding-day. Upon this hint, the milliner became anxious to push forward the affair. Marvel, she observed, hung back about the sale of his estate; and, as to Sir Plantagenet Mowbray's son, he was bound hand and foot by his father, so could do nothing genteel: besides, honourable matrimony was out of the question there.

All these things considered, the milliner's decision was, on perfectly prudential and virtuous motives, in favour of Wright. Miss Barton's _heart_, to use her own misapplied term, spoke warmly in his favour; for he was, without any comparison, the _handsomest_ of her lovers; and his simplicity and apparent ignorance of the world were rather recommendations than objections.

Upon her second interview with him, she had, however, some reason to suspect that his simplicity was not so great as she had imagined. She was surprised to observe, that, notwithstanding all their artful hints, Wright came to nothing like a positive proposal, nor even to any declaration of his pa.s.sion. The next day she was yet more astonished; for Wright, though he _knew_ she was a full hour in the milliner's shop, never made the slightest attempt to see her; nay, in the evening, he met her on the public walk, and pa.s.sed without more notice than a formal bow, and without turning his head back to look after her, though she was flirting with a party of gentlemen, expressly for the purpose of exciting his jealousy.

Another consultation was held with her friend the milliner: "These men are terrible creatures to deal with," said her confidant. "Do you know, my dear creature, this man, simple as he looks, has been very near taking us in. Would you believe it? he is absolutely courting a Lincolnshire lady for a wife. He wrote a letter to her, my dear Alicia, this morning, and begged me to let my boy run with it to the post-office. I winded and winded, saying he was mighty anxious about the letter, and so on, till, at the last, out comes the truth. Then I touched him about you; but he said, 'an actress was not fit for a farmer's wife, and that you had too many admirers already.' You see, my dear creature, that he has none of the thoughts we built upon. Depend upon it he is a shrewd man, and knows what he is about; so, as we cannot do better than Marvel, my advice--"