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It was a little family dinner the Olivers, Mr. Padget, the rector of Arden, who was to assist cheery Matthew Oliver in tying the fatal knot, and Mr. and Miss Granger a pleasant little party of seven, for whom Mr. Lovel's cook had prepared quite a model dinner.
However, her story is simplicity itself. My dear girl is an orphan, and six months ago she went to live with her guardian and uncle, David Magnus. But the situation quickly became intolerable. The attentions of the odious creature Olivers were openly encouraged by Dr. Magnus, and the child, although friendless and in a strange city, had no recourse but to run away.
The mortgage had again been extended and the note renewed this time for a longer term, owing to some friend's interest in the matter whose name she could not learn. She, therefore, felt no uneasiness on that score, although there were still no pennies which could be spared for Olivers travelling expenses, even if he could get leave of absence from his employers.
Virginia, with her little class to teach, and her responsibilities when the children were in the refectory and dormitory, was a changed creature, busy, important, absorbed. She showed the toddling Olivers the playroom and conservatory, and sent them home with their fat hands full of flowers.
I cried, coldly, yet, I believe, sincerely, "Save me, Lord, as a brand snatched out of the fire! Stretch forth Thine almighty arm and save Thy lost creature by free, unmerited grace!" 'Is not this a brand plucked from the burning? it was Thomas Olivers' text.
How I 'd like to banish him from this vicinity! Invite Edgar to dinner next week, mamma; not too soon, or he will suspect missionary work. Boys hate to be missionaried, and I 'm sure I don't blame them. I hope he is happy downstairs in his little prison! He ought to be, if ignorance is bliss!" It was five o'clock Saturday afternoon, and Edgar Noble stood on the Olivers' steps, Mrs.
On reaching the Olivers', hot and breathless, I put three gold coins, two sovereigns and a half-sovereign, on to the table to pay off the broker's men. They had been settling themselves for the night, and looked surprised and I thought chagrined, but took up the money and went away.
There is a great deal of rapid love-making between too gallant knights and too impressionable ladies; licentious amours which we moderns lay at the door of Boiardo and Ariosto, not knowing that the licentiousness of the Olivers and Ogiers and Guerins and Huons of mediæval poetry, of the sentimental Amadises, Galaors, and Lisvarts of the fourteenth century, whom the Renaissance has toned down in Rogers and Rinaldos and Ricciardettos, is by many degrees worse.
For in those simple days there were no special clubs with easy-chairs and convenient little tables loaded with drinkables and smokables none for the young Olivers, and certainly none for the women.
And punctually as the clock of the Old South told twelve came the shadows of the Olivers, the Hutchinsons, the Dudleys, all the grandees of a by-gone generation, gliding beneath the portal into the well-known mansion, where Esther mingled with them as if she likewise were a shade.
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