"
"No, sir, Joseph told me all about it afore he sailed, and how he
thought he'd got over it. Mr. Mortimer knows, as you're aware. Well,
lastly, Joseph wrote again and told me he was fairly breaking his heart
about her, and he should try his chance once more. You see, sir, his
ways and fashions and hers are not alike. It would not have answered
here--but there they'd both have to learn perfectly new ways and
manners, and speak to their feller creatures in a new language. There's
hardly another Englishman for her to measure him with, and not one
English lady to let her know she should have made a better match."
"Mr. Mortimer knows?"
"Ay, sir."
"And you never told your wife?"
"No, she has a good deal to hear, Mr. Valentine, besides that, and I
thought I'd tell it her all at once."
Valentine saw that he was expected to ask a question here.
"What, Swanny, is something else coming off then?"
"Ay, sir; you see, Mr. Melcombe, I'm lost here, I'm ekal to something
better, Mr. Mortimer knows it as well as I do. He's said as much to me
more than once.
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