of their talk overnight the boy had spoken bravely and honestly, and
Newcome could remember how, in his own early life, he too had courted and
loved a young lass. It was Mrs. Newcome the father was afraid of. Who
shall depict her wrath at the idea that a child of her house was about to
marry a Popish girl?

So young Newcome went his way to Blackheath, bent upon falling
straightway down upon his knees before Leonore, and having the
Chevalier's blessing. That old fiddler in London scarcely seemed to him
to be an obstacle: it seemed monstrous that a young creature should be
given away to a man older than her own father. He did not know the law of
honour, as it obtained amongst French gentlemen of those days, or how
religiously their daughters were bound by it.

But Mrs. Newcome had been beforehand with him, and had visited the
Chevalier de Blois almost at cockcrow. She charged him insolently with
being privy to the attachment between the young people; pursued him with
vulgar rebukes about beggary, Popery, and French adventurers. Her husband
had to make a very contrite apology afterwards for the language which his
wife had thought fit to employ. "You forbid me," said the Chevalier, "you
forbid Mademoiselle de Blois to marry your son, Mr. Thomas! No, madam,
she comes of a race which is not accustomed to ally itself with persons
of your class; and is promised to a gentleman whose ancestors were dukes
and peers when Mr. Newcome's were blacking shoes!" Instead of finding his
pretty blushing girl on arriving at Woolwich, poor Tom only found his
French master, livid with rage and quivering under his ailes de pigeon.
We pass over the scenes that followed; the young man's passionate
entreaties, and fury and despair. In his own defence, and to prove his
honour to the world, M. de Blois determined that his daughter should
instantly marry the Count. The poor girl yielded without a word, as