y where
he was, so that, flying upon Mash with all the fury of just revenge, a
dreadful combat ensued, which put the whole room in a consternation.

But Mr Merton soon appeared, and with some difficulty separated the
enraged champions. He then inquired into the subject of the contest,
which Master Mash endeavoured to explain away as an accident. But Harry
persisted in his account with so much firmness, in which he was
corroborated by Miss Simmons, that Mr Merton readily perceived the
truth. Mash, however, apologised for himself in the best manner that he
was able, by saying, that he only meant to play Master Harry an innocent
trick, but that he had undesignedly injured Miss Simmons.

Whatever Mr Merton felt, he did not say a great deal; he, however,
endeavoured to pacify the enraged combatants, and ordered assistance to
Harry to bind up the wound, and clean him from the blood which had now
disfigured him from head to foot.

Mrs Merton, in the mean time, who was sitting at the upper end of the
room amidst the other ladies, had seen the fray, and been informed that
it was owing to Harry's throwing a glass of lemonade in Master Mash's
face. This gave Mrs Compton an opportunity of indulging herself again in
long invectives against Harry, his breeding, family, and manners. "She
never," she said, "had liked the boy, and now he had justified all her
forebodings upon the subject. Such a little vulgar wretch could never
have been witness to anything but scenes of riot and ill-manners; and
now he was brawling and fighting in a gentleman's house, just as he
would do at one of the public houses to which he was used to go with his
father."

While she was in the midst of this eloquent harangue Mr Merton came up,
and gave a more unprejudiced narrative of the affair. He acquitted Harry
of all blame, and said that it was impossible, even for the mildest
temper in the world, to act otherwise upon such unmerited provocation.
This account seemed wonderfully to turn the scale in Harry's favour;
though Miss Simmons was no great favourite with the young ladies, yet
the spirit and gallantry which he had discovered in her cause began to
act very forcibly on their minds. One of the young ladies observed,
"that if Master Harry was better dressed he would certainly be a very
pretty boy;" another said, "she had always thought he had a look above
his station;" and a third remarked "that, considering he had never
learned to dance, he had by no me