Parson Kelly by A.E.W. Mason

Life is not wholly the lopsided business that some would have you esteem it. Here was the Parson paying, with a sword-thrust of the first quality, for a love-affair that was dead already; over and ended. That was bad, but, to balance his accounts, the Parson waked up from his swoon in Dr. Townley's house, with the Doctor's beautiful daughter, Rose, to be his nurse-tender. Lady Oxford had caused his duel with Scrope, to be sure, but she had thereby, as it were, cast him straight into the girl's arms, and in that very condition which was likely to make her most tender to him. Carry the conceit a little farther, and you'll see that here was Mr. Kelly, through her ladyship's behaviours, imprisoned in the hands of one of those very creatures which she was ever persuading him to avoid: namely, that terrible monster a girl, and she very young, frank, and beautiful.

When the Parson came to his senses, he called Dr. Townley to his side, and telling him who he was, and how that, being a friend of Mr. Wogan's, he knew the doctor from hearing his daughter call the dog Harlequin, he continued: