"So you know all about it, after all? How did you find out?"
"Never mind how; you'll find out how I knew it when you hear the bride's
name," laughed Nora.
"But I have hearn the bride's name; and a rum un it is, too! Lady, Lady
Hoist? no! Hurl? no! Hurt? yes, that is it! Lady Hurt-me-so, that's the
name of the lady he's done married!" said the old woman confidently.
"Ha, ha, ha! I tell you what, Hannah, she has had too much wine, and it
has got into her poor old head!" laughed Nora, laying her hand
caressingly upon the red-cotton handkerchief that covered the gray hair
of the gossip.
"No, it aint, nuther! I never drunk the half of what you gin me! I put
it up there on the mantel, and kivered it over with the brass
candlestick, to keep till I go to bed. No, indeed! my head-piece is as
clear as a bell!" said the old woman, nodding.
"But what put it in there, then, that Mr. Herman Brudenell has married a
lady with a ridiculous name?" laughed Nora.
"Acause he have, honey! which I would a-told you all about it ef you
hadn't a-kept on, and kept on, and kept on interrupting of me!"
"Nora," said Hannah, speaking for the first time in many minutes, and
looking very grave, "she has something to tell, and we had better let
her tell it."
"Very well, then! I'm agreed! Go on, Mrs. Jones!"
"Hem-m-m!" began Mrs. Jones, loudly clearing her throat. "Now I'll tell
you, jest as I got it, this arternoon, first from Uncle Jovial, and then
from Mrs. Spicer, and then from Madam Brudenell herself, and last of all
from my own precious eyesight! 'Pears like Mr. Herman Brudenell fell in
long o' this Lady Hurl-my-soul--Hurt-me-so, I mean,--while he was out
yonder in forring parts. And 'pears she was a very great lady indeed,
and a beautiful young widder besides. So she and Mr. Brudenell, they
fell in love long of each other. But law, you see her kinfolks was
bitter agin her a-marrying of him--which they called him a commoner, as
isn't true, you know, 'cause he is not one of the common sort at
all--though I s'pose they being so high, looked down upon him as sich.
Well, anyways, they was as bitter against her marrying of him, as his
kinsfolks would be agin him a-marrying of you. And, to be sure, being of
a widder, she a-done as she pleased, only she didn't want to give no
offense to her old father, who was very rich and very proud of her, who
was his onliest child he ever had in the world; so to make a long
rigamarole short, they runned away, so they did, Mr. Brudenell and her,
and they got married private, and never let the old man know it long as
ever he lived--"