The String of Pearls (1850), p. 232

was no other than her lover. Ben heard her all out with the most fixed attention. His mouth and eyes gradually opened wider and wider as she proceeded, partly from wonder at the whole affair, and partly from intense admiration at the way in which she told it, which he thought was better than any book he had ever read. When she had concluded, Ben again folded her in his arms, and she had to struggle terribly to get away.
"My dear child," he said, "you are a prodigy. Why, there's not an animal
as ever I knew comes near you; and so the poor fellow had his throat cut in the barber's for his string of pearls?"
"I fear he was murdered."
"Not a doubt of it."
"You really think so, Ben?"
The tone of agony with which this question was put to him, and the look of utter desolation which accompanied it, alarmed Ben, and he hastily said—
"Come, come, I didn't mean that. No doubt something has happened;
but it will be all right some day or another, you may depend. Oh, dear!
—oh, dear! The idea of your going to watch the barber with some boy's clothes on!"
"Tell me what I can do, for my heart and brain are nearly distractedly my sufferings?"
Ben looked all round the room, and then up at the ceiling, as though he had a hope and expectation of finding some startling suggestion written legibly before his eyes somewhere. At length he spoke, saying—
"I tell you what, Johanna, my dear, whatever you do, don't you put on them things again. You leave it all to me."
"But what will you do?—what can you do, Ben?"
"Well, I don't know exactly; but I'll let you know when it's done."
"But do not run into any danger for my sake."
"Danger? danger? I should like to see the barber that would interfere with me. No, my dear, no; I'm too well used to all sorts of animals for that. I'll see what I can do, and let you know all about it to-morrow, and in the meantime, you stick to the petticoats, and don't be putting on those thingamies again. You leave it to me—will you now?"
"Until to-morrow?"
"Yes, I'll be here to-morrow about this time, my dear, and I hope I shall
have some news for you. Well, I declare, it's just like a book, it is. You are quite a prodigy."
Ben would have treated Johanna to another of the suffocating embraces, but she contrived to elude him; and, as by this time the old gentleman in the shop was suited with a pair of spectacles, Mr. Oakley returned to the parlour. Johanna placed her finger upon her lips as an indication to Ben that he was to say nothing to her father of what had passed between them, for, although Mr. Oakley knew generally the story of his daughter's attachment to Mark Ingestrie, as the reader is aware, he knew nothing of the expedition to Fleet-street in disguise. Ben, feeling that he had now an important secret to keep, shut his
mouth hard, for fear it should escape, and looked so mysterious, that any one more sharp-sighted than the old spectacle-maker must have guessed that something very unusual was the matter. Mr, Oakley, however, had no suspicions; but as this state of things was very irksome to Ben, he soon rose to take his leave."
"I shall look in again to-morrow," he said, "Cousin Oakley."
"We shall be glad to see you," said Mr. Oakley.
"Yes," added Johanna, who felt it incumbent upon her to say something, "we shall be very glad to see you indeed."
"Ah," said her father, "you and Ben were always great friends."
"And we always shall be," said Ben. Then he thought that he would add
something wonderfully clever, so as completely to ward off all suspicions of Oakley's, if he had any, and he added—" She ain't like some young creatures