Tales and Novels Volume I Part 29

There was seated at a small table, in a perfectly neat parlour, a quaker, whose benevolent countenance charmed Angelina the moment she entered the room.

"Pardon this intrusion," said she.

"Friend, thou art welcome," said Dinah Plait, and her looks said so more expressively than her words. An elderly man rose, and leaving the cork-screw in the half-drawn cork of a bottle of cider, he set a chair for Angelina, and withdrew to the window.

"Be seated, and eat, for verily thou seemest to be hungry," said Mrs.

Plait to Betty Williams, who instantly obeyed, and began to eat like one that had been half famished.

"And now, friend, thy business, thy distress--what is it?" said Dinah, turning to Angelina: "so young to have sorrows."

"I had best take myself away," said the elderly gentleman, who stood at the window--"I had best take myself away, for miss may not like to speak before me--though she might, for that matter."

"Where is the gentleman going?" said Miss Warwick; "I have but one short question to ask, and I have nothing to say that need--"

"I dare say, young lady, you can have nothing to say that you need be ashamed of, only people in distress don't like so well to speak before third folks, I _guess_--though, to say the truth, I have never known, by my own experience, what it was to be in much distress since I came into the world--but I hope I am not the more hard-hearted for that--for I can guess, I say, pretty well, how those in distress feel when they come to speak. Do as you would be done by is my maxim till I can find a better--so I take myself away, leaving my better part behind me, if it will be of any service to you, madam."

As he pa.s.sed by Miss Warwick, he dropped his purse into her lap, and he was gone before she could recover from her surprise.

"Sir!--madam!" cried she, rising hastily, "here has been some strange mistake--I am not a beggar--I am much, very much obliged to you, but--"

"Nay, keep it, friend, keep it," said Dinah Plait, pressing the purse upon Angelina; "John Barker is as rich as a Jew, and as generous as a prince. Keep it, friend, and you'll oblige both him and me--'tis dangerous in this world for one so young and so pretty as you are to be in _great distress_; so be not proud."

"I am not proud," said Miss Warwick, drawing her purse from her pocket; "but my distress is not of a pecuniary nature--Convince yourself--I am in distress only for a friend, _an unknown_ friend."

"Touched in her brain, I doubt," thought Dinah.

"Coot ale!" exclaimed Betty Williams--"Coot heggs and pacon."

"Does a lady of the name of Araminta--Miss Hodges, I mean--lodge here?"

said Miss Warwick.

"Friend, I do not let lodgings; and I know of no such person as Miss Hodges."

"Well, I swear hur name, the coachman told me, did begin with a p, and end with a t," cried Betty Williams, "or I would never have let him knock at hur toor."

"Oh, my Araminta! my Araminta!" exclaimed Angelina, turning up her eyes towards heaven--"when, oh when shall I find thee? I am the most unfortunate person upon earth."

"Had not hur petter eat a hegg, and a pit of pacon? here's one pit left," said Betty: "hur must be hungry, for 'tis two o'clock past, and we preakfasted at nine--hur must be hungry;" and Betty pressed her _to try the pacon_; but Angelina put it away, or, in the proper style, motioned the bacon from her.

"I am in no want of food," cried she, rising: "happy they who have no conception of any but corporeal sufferings. Farewell, madam!--may the sensibility, of which your countenance is so strongly expressive, never be a source of misery to you!"--and with that depth of sigh which suited the close of such a speech, Angelina withdrew.

"If I could but have felt her pulse," said Dinah Plait to herself, "I could have prescribed something that, maybe, would have done her good, poor distracted thing! Now it was well done of John Barker to leave this purse for her--but how is this?--poor thing! she's not fit to be trusted with money--here she has left her own purse full of guineas."

Dinah ran immediately to the house-door, in hopes of being able to catch Angelina; but the coach had turned down into another street, and was out of sight. Mrs. Plait sent for her constant counsellor, John Barker, to deliberate on the means of returning the purse. It should be mentioned, to the credit of Dinah's benevolence, that, at the moment when she was interrupted by the entrance of Betty Williams and Angelina, she was hearing the most flattering things from a person who was not disagreeable to her: her friend, John Barker, was a rich hosier, who had retired from business; and who, without any ostentation, had a great deal of real feeling and generosity. But the fastidious taste of _fine_, or sentimental readers, will probably be disgusted by our talking of the feelings and generosity of a hosier and a cheesemonger's widow.

It belongs to a certain cla.s.s of people to indulge in the luxury of sentiment: we shall follow our heroine, therefore, who, both from her birth and education, is properly qualified to have--"exquisite feelings."

The next house at which Angelina stopped, to search for her amiable Araminta, was at Mrs. Porett's academy for young ladies.

"Yes, ma'am, Miss Hodges is here--Pray walk into this room, and you shall see the young lady immediately." Angelina burst into the room instantly, exclaiming--

"Oh, my Araminta! have I found you at last?"

She stopped short, a little confounded at finding herself in a large room full of young ladies, who were dancing reels, and who all stood still at one and the same instant, and fixed their eyes upon her, struck with astonishment at her theatrical entree and exclamation.

"Miss Hodges!" said Mrs. Porett--and a little girl of seven years old came forward:--"Here, ma'am," said Mrs. Porett to Angelina, "here is Miss Hodges."

"Not _my_ Miss Hodges! not my Araminta! alas!"

"No, ma'am," said the little girl; "I am only Letty Hodges."

Several of her companions now began to t.i.tter.

"These girls," said Angelina to herself, "take me for a fool;" and, turning to Mrs. Porett, she apologized for the trouble she had given, in language as little romantic as she could condescend to use.

"Tid you bid me, miss, wait in the coach, or the pa.s.sage?" cried Betty Williams, forcing her way in at the door, so as almost to push down the dancing-master, who stood with his back to it. Betty stared round, and dropped curtsy after curtsy, whilst the young ladies laughed and whispered, and whispered and laughed; and the words, odd--vulgar--strange--who is she?--what is she?--reached Miss Warwick.

"This Welsh girl," thought she, "is my torment. Wherever I go she makes me share the ridicule of her folly."

Clara Hope, one of the young ladies, saw and pitied Angelina's confusion.

"Gif over, an ye have any gude nature--gif over your whispering and laughing," said Clara to her companions: "ken ye not ye make her so bashful, she'd fain hide her face wi' her twa hands."

But it was in vain that the good-natured Clara Hope remonstrated: her companions could not forbear t.i.ttering, as Betty Williams, upon Miss Warwick's laying the blame of the mistake on her, replied in a strong Welsh accent--"I will swear almost the name was Porett or Plait, where our Miss Hodges tid always lodge in Pristol. Porett, or Plait, or Puffit, or some of her names that pekin with a p and ent with at."

Angelina, quite _overpowered_, shrunk back, as Betty bawled out her vindication, and she was yet more confused, when Monsieur Richelet, the dancing-master, at this unlucky instant, came up to her, and with an elegant bow, said, "It is not difficult to see by her air, that mademoiselle dances superiorly. Mademoiselle vould she do me de plaisir--de honneur to dance one minuet?"

"Oh, if she would but dance!" whispered some of the group of young ladies.

"Excuse me, sir," said Miss Warwick.

"Not a minuet?--den a minuet de la cour, a cotillon, or contredanse, or reel; vatever mademoiselle please vill do us honneur."

Angelina, with a mixture of impatience and confusion, repeated, "Excuse me, sir--I am going--I interrupt--I beg I may not interrupt."

"A coot morrow to you all, creat and small," said Betty Williams, curtsying awkwardly at the door as she went out before Miss Warwick.

The young ladies were now diverted so much beyond the bounds of decorum, that Mrs. Porett was obliged to call them to order.

"Oh, my Araminta, what scenes have I gone through! to what derision have I exposed myself for your sake!" said our heroine to herself.

Just as she was leaving the dancing-room, she was stopped short by Betty Williams, who, with a face of terror, exclaimed, "'Tis a poy in the hall, that I tare not pa.s.s for my lifes; he has a pasket full of pees in his hand, and I cannot apide pees, ever since one tay when I was a chilt, and was stung on the nose by a pee. The poy in the hall has a pasketful of pees, ma'am," said Betty, with an imploring accent, to Mrs.

Porett.

"A basketful of bees!" said Mrs. Porett, laughing: "Oh, you are mistaken: I know what the boy has in his basket--they are only flowers; they are not bees: you may safely go by them."

"Put I saw pees with my own eyes," persisted Betty.

"Only a basketful of the bee orchis, which I commissioned a little boy to bring from St. Vincent's rocks for my young botanists," said Mrs.