He sat down on a little seat which commanded an extensive prospect
round the house. He leaned on his hand, and scored the ground with
his stick: 'Miss Walton married!' said he; but what is that to me?
May she be happy! her virtues deserve it; to me her marriage is
otherwise indifferent: I had romantic dreams? they are fled?--it is
perfectly indifferent."
Just at that moment he saw a servant with a knot of ribbons in his
hat go into the house. His cheeks grew flushed at the sight! He
kept his eye fixed for some time on the door by which he had
entered, then starting to his feet, hastily followed him.
When he approached the door of the kitchen where he supposed the man
had entered, his heart throbbed so violently, that when he would
have called Peter, his voice failed in the attempt. He stood a
moment listening in this breathless state of palpitation: Peter
came out by chance. "Did your honour want any thing?"--"Where is
the servant that came just now from Mr. Walton's?"
"From Mr. Walton's, sir! there is none of his servants here that I
know of."--"Nor of Sir Harry Benson's?"--He did not wait for an
answer; but having by this time observed the hat with its parti-
coloured ornament hanging on a peg near the door, he pressed
forwards into the kitchen, and addressing himself to a stranger whom
he saw there, asked him, with no small tremor in his voice, "If he
had any commands for him?" The man looked silly, and said, "That he
had nothing to trouble his honour with.
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