[The Virginians by William Makepeace Thackeray]@TWC D-Link book
The Virginians

CHAPTER VII
18/21

When you are gone, he will ask your mother to marry him, and you will find him master here when you come back.

That is why you ought not to go away, you poor, unhappy, simple boy! Don't you see how fond she is of him?
how much she makes of him?
how she is always holding him up to you, to Harry, to everybody who comes here ?" "But he is going on the campaign, too," cried George.
"He is going on the marrying campaign, child!" insisted the widow.
"Nay; General Braddock himself told me that Mr.Washington had accepted the appointment of aide-de-camp." "An artifice! an artifice to blind you, my poor child!" cries Mountain.
"He will be wounded and come back--you will see if he does not.

I have proofs of what I say to you--proofs under his own hand--look here!" And she took from her pocket a piece of paper in Mr.Washington's well-known handwriting.
"How came you by this paper ?" asked George, turning ghastly pale.
"I--I found it in the Major's chamber!" says Mrs.Mountain, with a shamefaced look.
"You read the private letters of a guest staying in our house ?" cried George.

"For shame! I will not look at the paper!" And he flung it from him on to the fire before him.
"I could not help it, George; 'twas by chance, I give you my word, by the merest chance.

You know Governor Dinwiddie is to have the Major's room, and the state-room is got ready for Mr.Braddock, and we are expecting ever so much company, and I had to take the things which the Major leaves here--he treats the house just as if it was his own already--into his new room, and this half-sheet of paper fell out of his writing-book, and I just gave one look at it by the merest chance, and when I saw what it was it was my duty to read it." "Oh, you are a martyr to duty, Mountain!" George said grimly.


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