Volume the Third: Diplomatic DisplayLondonBritish Library, Add. MS. 65381
The Stranger, whose appearance did not
disgracethe account she had received of it from her Maid, rose up on her entrance, and laying
aside theNewspaper he had been reading, advanced
towardsher with an air of the most perfect Ease & Viva::city, and said to her, "It is certainly a very awk::ward circumstance to be thus obliged to
intro::duce myself, but I trust that the
neceſsity ofthe case will plead my Excuse, and preventyour being
prejudiced by it against me –. Yourname, I need not ask Ma'am –. Miſs PercivalMiſs Peterson is too well known to me by description to need
anyinformation of that." Kitty, who had been ex::pecting him to tell his own name, instead
of hers, and who from having been little in compa::ny, and never before in such a situation,
feltherself [.]1 unable to ask it, tho'though she had been planning her speech all the way down stairs,
wasso confused & distreſsed by this
unexpected addreſs that she could only return a slight
curtesy to it, and accepted the chair he reached her, without
Footnotes
- 1.
- Single, illegible letter erased following 'herself'.Back to context...