You are very fond of it, I daresay?" he added
interrogatively.
"O, yes, I like it very much! I can't bear to part with it."
And here Bessie Lovel, not being gifted with the power of concealing her
emotions, fairly broke down and cried like a child.
"My dear Mrs. Austin," exclaimed George Fairfax, "pray don't distress
yourself like that. Part with it? Why should you part with your locket?"
"O, Mr. Fairfax, I oughtn't to have told you--Austin would be so angry if
he knew--but he has been losing money at that horrid ecarty, and he says
he must have ten pounds to-morrow; so my beautiful locket must go to the
pawnbroker's."
George Fairfax paused. His first impulse was to lend the poor little woman
the money--the veriest trifle, of course, to the lord of Lyvedon. But the
next moment another idea presented itself to him. He had the locket lying
in the open palm of his hand. It would be so sweet to possess that lock of
hair--to wear so dear a token of his mistress. Even those two words, "From
Clarissa," had a kind of magic for him. It was a foolish weakness, of
course; but then love is made up of such follies.
"If you really mean to part with this," he said, "I should be very glad to
have it. I would give you more than any pawnbroker--say, twenty instead of
ten pounds, for instance--and a new locket for yourself into the bargain. I
shouldn't like to deprive you of an ornament you valued without some kind
of compensation.
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