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obeying its call, Juliet beheld Sir Jaspar Herrington, the gouty old Baronet.
The expression of her countenance immediately demanded explanation, if not apology, as she stepped forward upon the landing-place, to make clear that she should not receive him in her apartment.
His keen eye read her meaning, though, affecting not to perceive it, he pleasantly said, "How? immured in your chamber? and of a gala day?"
The recollection of the essential, however forced obligation, which she owed to him, for her deliverance from the persecution of Miss Bydel, soon dissipated her first impression in his disfavour, and she quietly answered that she went very little abroad: but when she would have enquired into his business, "You can refuse yourself, then," he cried, pretending not to hear her, "the honour—or pleasure, which shall we call it? of sharing in the gaieties of your fair fellow-votaries to the needle?
