Up to that time, that miserable dwarf was what people would call my guardian, and did not trouble me much with his heavenly company.

He was a great deal from our house, sometimes absent for weeks together; and I remember I used to envy the freedom with which he came and went, far more than I ever wondered where he spent his precious time.

I did not know then that he belonged to the honorable profession of highwaymen, with variations of coining when travelers were few and money scarce.

He was then, and is still, at the head of a formidable gang, over whom he wields most desperate authority--as perhaps you have noticed during the brief and pleasant period of your acquaintance." "Really, madam, it struck me that your authority over them was much more despotic than his," said Sir Norman, in all sincerity, feeling called upon to give the--well, I'd rather not repeat the word, which is generally spelled with a d and a dash--his due.
"No thanks to him for that! He would make me a slave now, as he did then, if he dared, but he has found that, poor, trodden worm as I was, I had life enough left to turn and sting." "Which you do with a vengeance! Oh! you're a Tartar!" remarked Sir Norman to himself.

"The saints forefend that Leoline should be like you in temper, as she is in history and face; for if she is, my life promises to be a pleasant one." "This rascally crew of cut-throats, whom his villainous highness headed," said Miranda, "were an almost immense number then, being divided in three bodies--London cut-purses, Hounslow Heath highwaymen, and assistant-coiners, but all owning him for their lord and master.
He told me all this himself, one day when, in an after-dinner and most gracious mood, he made a boasting display of his wealth and greatness; told me I was growing up very pretty indeed, and that I was shortly to be raised to the honor and dignity, and bliss of being his wife.
"I fancy I must have had a very vague idea of what that one small word meant, and was besides in an unusually contented and peaceful state of mind, or I should, undoubtedly, have raised one of his cut-glass decanters and smashed in his head with it.