''Oh, miss, what nonsense!''
''Is it? Here, turn your hand.'' She does, and I jab the needle harder. ''Now, say you don''t like it, having a prick upon your palm!''
She takes her hand away and sucks it, and begins to cry. The sight of her tears—and of her mouth, working on the bit of tender flesh that I have stabbed—first stirs, then troubles me; then makes me weary. I leave her weeping, and stand at my rattling window, my eyes upon the lawn that dips to the wall, the rushes, the Thames.
''Will you be quiet?'' I say, when her breath still catches. ''Look at you! Tears, for a gentleman! Don''t you know that he won''t be handsome, or even young? Don''t you know, they never are?''
But of course, he is both.
''Mr Richard Rivers,'' my uncle says. The name seems auspicious to me. Later I will discover it to be false—as false as his rings, his smile, his manner; but now, as I stand in the drawing-room and he rises to make me his bow, why should I think to doubt him? He has fine features, even teeth, and is taller than my uncle by almost a foot. His hair is brushed and has oil upon it, but is long: a curl springs from its place and tumbles across his brow. He puts a hand to it, re