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Catherine: a Story by William Makepeace Thackeray
page 49 of 242 (20%)
incontinently to the first justice of the peace, and there swearing
before his worship who was the father of the coming child.

This proceeding, which she had expected would cause not a little
indignation on the part of her lord and master, was received by him,
strangely enough, with considerable good-humour: he swore that the
wench had served him a good trick, and was rather amused at the
anger, the outbreak of fierce rage and contumely, and the wretched
wretched tears of heartsick desperation, which followed her
announcement of this step to him. For Mr. Brock, she repelled his
offer with scorn and loathing, and treated the notion of a union
with Mr. Bullock with yet fiercer contempt. Marry him indeed! a
workhouse pauper carrying a brown-bess! She would have died sooner,
she said, or robbed on the highway. And so, to do her justice, she
would: for the little minx was one of the vainest creatures in
existence, and vanity (as I presume everybody knows) becomes THE
principle in certain women's hearts--their moral spectacles, their
conscience, their meat and drink, their only rule of right and
wrong.

As for Mr. Tummas, he, as we have seen, was quite unfriendly to the
proposition as she could be; and the Corporal, with a good deal of
comical gravity, vowed that, as he could not be satisfied in his
dearest wishes, he would take to drinking for a consolation: which
he straightway did.

"Come, Tummas," said he to Mr. Bullock "since we CAN'T have the girl
of our hearts, why, hang it, Tummas, let's drink her health!" To
which Bullock had no objection. And so strongly did the
disappointment weigh upon honest Corporal Brock, that even when,
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