"I stand like this," he
said, "and she stands there; and I take her to task for not paying her
bills--for some of those fellows have had to come to me, which is not
as it should be in a country place, where people don't understand the
fashionable system. She stands there, ma'am, and I feel as sure as if I
were an English twenty-four bearing down upon a Frenchman of fifty
guns, that she can only haul her colours down and rig out gangway
ladders--when, bless me and keep me! I am carried by surprise, and
driven under hatchways, and if there is a guinea in my hold, it flies
into the enemy's locker! If it happened only once, I should think
nothing of it. But when I know exactly what is coming, and have
double-shotted every gun, and set up hammock-nettings, and taken
uncommon care to have the weather-gage, 'tis the Devil, Lady
Scudamore--excuse me, madam--'tis the Devil to a ditty-bag that I have
her at my mercy. And yet it always comes to money out of pocket, madam!"
"She certainly has a great power over gentlemen"--Blyth's mother smiled
demurely, as if she were sorry to confess it; "but she is exceedingly
young, Sir Charles, and every allowance must be made for her."
"And by the Lord Harry, she gets it, madam. She takes uncommonly good
care of that. But what is the one thing you mentioned that would prevent
you from coming back to us with pleasure?"
"I scarcely like to speak of it. But it is about that self-same Dolly.
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