Mistress Jennings, this is my dangerous friend, Master George
Hamilton."
Nelly's words were my cousin's first warning of Hamilton's presence, and
her surprise, nay, her consternation, deprived her, for the moment, of
the power to think. Hamilton bowed low before my cousin and said:--
"I have the great pleasure of knowing Mistress Jennings."
Anger came to Frances's help, and she retorted: "You are mistaken, sir.
You have not the pleasure of knowing me, nor have I the humiliation of
knowing you."
She turned again to her dinner. Nelly whistled in surprise, and Hamilton
said: "I beg your pardon." Then turning to Nelly: "I thought I knew the
king's new lady love, but it seems I was mistaken. Adieu, Mistress
Gwynn." And turning hastily, he left the room.
As George was resuming his chair at the table in the tap-room, three
roystering, half-tipsy fellows, wearing the uniform of the King's Guard,
entered, flung themselves into chairs at the long table and called loudly
for brandy. Hamilton did not know any of them, though he knew by their
uniforms and swords that they were in the king's service.
Soon after the guardsmen were seated, Betty came from the kitchen
carrying a pot of hot tea and a bottle of wine for Nelly and Frances. As
she was passing the newcomers, one of them rose, seized her about the
waist, and tried to kiss her. But the girl belonged, flesh and blood,
to the class of women with whom kissing goes strictly by favor, so she
dashed the hot tea in the fellow's face and went her way with the bottle
of wine.
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