"He said as much himself, Fanny," Bows said; and Fanny asked through her sobs, Why, why should he wish he had never seen her? Had she ever done him any harm? Oh, she would perish rather than do him any harm. Whereupon the musician informed her of the conversation of the day previous, showed her that Pen could not and must not think of her as a wife fitting for him, and that she, as she valued her honest reputation, must strive too to forget him. And Fanny, leaving the musician, convinced but still of the same mind, and promising that she would avoid the danger which menaced her, went back to the Porter's Lodge, and told her mother all. She talked of her love for Arthur, and bewailed, in her artless manner, the inequality of their condition, that set barriers between them. "There's the Lady of Lyons," Fanny said; "Oh, ma! how I did love Mr. Macready when I saw him do it; and Pauline, for being faithful to poor Claude, and always thinking of him; and he coming back to her, an officer, through all his dangers! And if every body admires Pauline--and I'm sure every body does, for being so true to a poor man--why should a gentleman be ashamed of loving a poor girl? Not that Mr. Arthur loves me--Oh, no, no! I ain't worthy of him; only a princess is worthy of such a gentleman as him. Such a poet!--writing so beautifully, and looking so grand! I'm sure he's a nobleman, and of ancient family, and kep out of his estate. Perhaps his uncle has it. Ah, if I might, oh, how I'd serve him, and work for him, and slave for him, that I would. I wouldn't ask for more than that, ma--just to be allowed to see him of a morning; and sometimes he'd say 'How d'you do, Fanny?' or, 'God bless you Fanny!' as he said on Sunday. And I'd work, and work; and I'd, sit up all night, and read, and learn, and make myself worthy of him. The captain says his mother lives in the country, and is a grand lady there. Oh, how I wish I might go and be her servant, ma! I can do plenty of things, and work very neat; and--and sometimes he'd come home, and I should see him!"
The girl's head fell on her mother's shoulder as she spoke, and she gave way to a plentiful outpouring of girlish tears, to which the matron, of course, joined her own. "You mustn't think no more of him, Fanny," she said. "If he don't come to you, he's a horrid, wicked man."