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CHAPTER L

Juliet, as earnest to avoid, as Flora felt eager to pursue, the opening feats, hurried from the destined spot, after charging the simple damsel not to make known her departure. Unavailing, however, was the caution; and immaterial alike the prudence or the indiscretion of Flora: Juliet had no sooner crossed the first style, than she perceived Sir Lyell Sycamore sauntering in the meadow.

She would promptly have returned to the farm, but a shout of noisy merriment reached her ears from the company that she was quitting, and pointed out the danger of passing the evening in the midst of such turbulent and vulgar revelry. She hastened, therefore, on; but neither the lightness of her step, nor the swiftness of her speed, could save her from the quick approach of the Baronet. 'My angel!' he cried, 'whither are you going? and why this prodigious haste? What is it my angel fears? Can she suppose me rascal enough, or fool enough, to make use of any violence? No, my angel, no! I only ask to be regaled, from your own sweet lips, with the delicious tale of divine partiality, that the quaint old knight began revealing. I sigh, I pant to hear confirmed – '

'Hold, Sir Lyell!' interrupted Juliet. 'If Sir Jaspar is the author of this astonishing mistake, I trust he will have the honour to rectify it. When I named you to him, it was but with a view to rescue a credulous young creature from your pursuit, whom I feared it might injure; not to expose to it one whom it never can endanger; however deeply it may offend.'

Struck and disappointed at the courage and coolness of this explanation, Sir Lyell looked mortified and amazed; but, upon seeing her reach the style, he sprang over it, and, recovering his usual effrontery, offered her his hand.

Juliet knew not whether her risk were greater to proceed or to return; but while she hesitated, a phaeton, which was driving by, stopt, and an elderly lady, addressing the Baronet, in a tone of fawning courtesy, enquired after his health, and added, 'So you are come to this famous junket, Sir Lyell?'

Sir Lyell forced a laugh, and bowed low; though he muttered, loud enough for Juliet to hear, 'What cursed spies!'

Juliet now perceived Mrs and Miss Brinville; and neither innocence, nor contempt of calumny, could suppress a rising blush, at being surprised, by persons already unfavourably disposed towards her, in a situation apparently so suspicious.

The countenance of the mother exhibited strong chagrin at sight of Juliet; while the daughter, in a tone of pique, said, 'No doubt but you are well amused, Sir Lyell?'

They drove on; not, however, very fast, and with so little self-command, as frequently to allow themselves to look back. This indelicacy, however ill adapted to raise them in the esteem of the Baronet, at least rescued Juliet from his persecution. Disconcerted himself, he felt the necessity of decency; and, quitting her, with affected carelessness, he hummed an air, while grumbling curses, and, swinging his switch to and fro, walked off; not more careful that the ladies in the phaeton should see him depart, than assiduous to avoid with them any sort of junction.

The relief caused to Juliet by his retreat, was cruelly clouded by her terrour of the false suggestions to which this meeting made her liable. Neither mother nor daughter would believe it accidental; nor credit it to have been contrived without equal guilt in both parties. Is there no end, then, she cried, to the evils of defenceless female youth? And, even where actual danger is escaped, must slander lie in wait, to misconstrue the most simple actions, by surmising the most culpable designs?

Neither to follow the footsteps of Sir Lyell, nor to remain where he might return, she was going back to the farm; when she was met by Flora, who, with a species of hysterical laughter, nearly of kin to crying, called out, 'So Ma'am! so Miss Ellis! I've caught you at last! I've surprised you at last! a-courting with my sweetheart!'

Pitying her credulous ignorance, Juliet would have cleared up this mistake; but the petulant Flora would not listen. 'I'll speak to the gentleman myself!' she cried, running forward to the style; 'for I have found out your design; so it's of no use to deny it! I saw you together all the way I came; so you may as well not try to make a ninny of me, Miss Ellis, for it i'n't so easy!'

Catching a glimpse of the Baronet as he descended the road, she jumped over the style to run after him; but seeing him look round, and, though he perceived her, quietly walk on, she stopt, crying bitterly: 'Very well, Miss Ellis! very well! you've got your ends! I see that! and, I don't thank you for it, I assure you, for I liked him very well; and it i'n't so easy to find a man of quality every day; so it i'n't doing as you'd be done by; for nobody likes much to be forsaken, no more than I, I believe, for it i'n't so agreeable. And I had rather you had not served me so by half! In particular for a man of quality!'

Juliet, though vainly, was endeavouring to appease and console her, when a young lady, bending eagerly from the window of a post chaise which was passing by, ejaculated, 'Ellis!' and Juliet, with extreme satisfaction, perceived Elinor.

The chaise stopt, and Juliet advanced to it with alacrity; but before she could speak, the impatient Elinor, still looking pale, meagre, and wretched, burst forth, with rapid and trembling energy, into a string of disordered, incoherent, scarcely intelligible interrogatories. 'Ellis! what brings you to this spot? – Whither is it you go? – What project are you forming? – What purpose are you fulfilling? – Whom are you flying – Whom are you following? – What is it you design? – What is it you wish? – Why are you here alone? – Where – Where – '

Leaning, then, still further out of the window, she fixed her nearly haggard, yet piercing eyes upon those of Juliet, and, in a hollow voice, dictatorially added: 'Where – tell me, I charge you! where – is Harleigh?'

Consternation at sight of her altered countenance, and affright at the impetuosity of her questions, produced a hesitation in the answer of Juliet, that, to the agitated Elinor, seemed the effect of surprised guilt. Her pallid cheeks then burnt with the mixed feelings of triumph and indignation; yet her voice sought to disguise her wounded feelings, and in subdued, though broken accents, ''Tis well!' she cried, 'You no longer, at least, seek to deceive me, and I thank you!' Deaf to explanation or representation, she then hurried her weak frame from the chaise, aided by her foreign lackey; and, directing Juliet to follow, crossed the road to a rising ground upon the Downs; seated herself; sent off her assistant, and made Juliet take a place by her side; while Flora returned, crying and alone, to the farm.

'Now, then,' she said, 'that you try no more to delude, to cajole, to blind me, tell me now, and in two words, – where is Harleigh?'

'Believe me, Madam, – ' Juliet was tremblingly beginning, when Elinor, casting off the little she had assumed of self-command, passionately, cried, 'Must I again be played upon by freezing caution and duplicity? Must I die without end the lingering death of cold inaction and uncertainty? breathe for ever without living? Where, I demand, is Harleigh? Where have you concealed him? Why will Harleigh, the noble Harleigh, degrade himself by any concealment? Why stoop to the subtilty of circumspection, to spare himself the appearance of destroying one whose head, heart, and vitals, all feel the reality of the destruction he inflicts? And yet not he! No, no! 'tis my own ruthless star! He loves me not! he is not responsible for my misery, though he is master of my fate! Where is he? where is he? You, – who are the tyrant of his! tell me, and at once!'

'I solemnly protest to you, Madam, with the singleness of the most scrupulous truth,' cried Juliet, recovering her presence of mind, 'I am entirely ignorant of his abode, his occupations, and his intentions.' Ah why, she secretly added, am I not equally unacquainted with his feelings and his wishes!

Unable to discredit the candour with which this was pronounced, and filled with wonder, yet involuntarily consoled, the features of Elinor lost their rigidity, and her eyes their fierceness; and, in milder accents, she replied, 'Strange! how strange! Where, then, can he be? – with whom? – how employed? – Does he fly the whole world as well as Elinor? Has no one his society? – no one his confidence? – his society, which, by contrast, makes all existence without it disgusting! – his confidence, which, to obtain, I would yet live, though doomed daily to the rack! O Harleigh! love like mine, who has felt? – love like mine, who but you, O matchless Harleigh! ever inspired!'

Tears now gushed into her eyes. Ashamed, and angry with herself, she hastily brushed them off with the back of her hand, and, with forced vivacity, continued, 'He thinks, perchance, to sicken me into the pining end of a love-sick consumption? to avert the kindly bowl or dagger, that cut short human misery, for the languors, the sufferings, and despair of a loathsome natural death? And for what? – to restore, to preserve me? No! I have no share in the arrangement; no interest, no advantage from the plan. Appearances alone are considered; all else is regarded as immaterial; or sacrificed. And he, Harleigh, the noblest, – the only noble of men! – can level himself with the narrowest and most illiberal of his race, to pay coward obeisance to appearances!'

Again she then repeated her personal interrogatories to Juliet; and demanded whether she should set off immediately for Gretna Green, with Lord Melbury; or whether she must wait till he should be of age.

'Neither!' Juliet solemnly answered; and frankly recounted her recent difficulties; and entreated the advice of Elinor for adopting another plan of life.

Elinor, interrupting her, said, 'Nay, 'twas your own choice, you know, to live in a garret, and hem pocket-handkerchiefs.'

'Choice, Madam! Alas! deprived of all but personal resource, I fixed upon a mode of life that promised me, at least, my mental freedom. I was not then aware how imaginary is the independence, that hangs for support upon the uncertain fruits of daily exertions! Independent, indeed, such situations may be deemed from the oppressions of power, or the tyrannies of caprice and ill humour; but the difficulty of obtaining employment, the irregularity of pay, the dread of want, – ah! what is freedom but a name, for those who have not an hour at command from the subjection of fearful penury and distress?'

'If all this is so,' said Elinor, 'which, unless you wait for Lord Melbury's majority, is more than incomprehensible; what say you, now, to an asylum safe, at least, from torments of this sort; – will you commission me, at length, to apply to Mrs Ireton?'

Juliet, instinctively, recoiled at the very name of that lady; yet a little reflection upon the dangers to which she was now exposed, through unprotected poverty; through the lawless pursuit of Sir Lyell Sycamore; and the vindictive calumnies of the Brinvilles, made the wish of solid safety repress the disgusts of offended sensibility; and, after a painful pause, she recommended herself to the support of Elinor: resolving to accept, for the moment, any proposition, that might secure her an honourable refuge from want and misconception.

Elinor, looking at her suspiciously, said, 'And Harleigh? – Will he let you submit to such slavery?'

Mr Harleigh, Juliet protested, could have no influence upon her determination.

'But you yourself, who a month or two ago, could so ill bear her tauntings, how is it you are thus suddenly endued with so much humility?'

'Alas, Madam, all choice, all taste, all obstacles sink before necessity! When I came over, I had expectations of immediate succour. I knew not that the friend I sought was herself ruined, as well as unhappy! I had hopes, too, of speedy intelligence that might have liberated me from all my difficulties…'

She stopt; Elinor exclaimed, 'From whence? – From abroad? – '

Juliet was silent; and Elinor, after a few passing sallies against secrets and mystery, sarcastically bid her consider, before she adopted this new scheme, that Harleigh never visited at Mrs Ireton's; having taken, in equal portions, a dose of aversion for the mother, and of contempt for the son.

Juliet calmly replied, that such a circumstance could be but an additional motive to seek the situation; and, hopeless, for the moment, of doing better, seriously begged that proper measures might be taken to accelerate the plan.

Elinor, now, from mingled wonder, satisfaction, and scorn, recovered all her wonted vivacity. 'You are really, and bona fide, contented, then,' she cried, 'to be shut up as completely from Harleigh, through his horrour of that woman's irascible temper, as if you were separated by bolts, bars, dungeons, towers, and bastilles? I applaud your taste, and wish you the full enjoyment of its fruits! Yet what materials you can be made of, to see the first of men at your feet, and voluntarily to fly him, to be trampled under by those of the most odious of women, I cannot divine! 'Tis an exuberance of apathy that surpasses my comprehension. And can He, the spirited Harleigh, love, adore, such a composition of ice, of snow, of marble?'

She could not, however, disguise the elation with which she looked forward, to depositing Juliet where information might constantly be procured of her visitors and her actions. They went together to the carriage; and Elinor conveyed her submissive and contemned, yet agonizingly envied rival, to Brighthelmstone.

In her usually unguarded manner, Elinor, by the way, communicated the various, but successless efforts by which she had endeavoured to gain intelligence whither Harleigh had rambled. 'If I pursued him,' she cried, 'with the vanity of hope; or with the meanness of flattery, he would do well to shun me; but the pure-minded Harleigh is capable of believing, that the moment is over for Elinor to desire to be his! And, to sustain at once and shew my principles, I never seek his sight, but in presence of her who has blasted even my wishes! Else, thus clamourously to invoke, thus pertinaciously to follow him, might, indeed, merit avoidance. But Elinor, now, would be as superiour to accepting, … as she is to forgetting him!'

'Yet his obdurate seclusion,' she continued, 'is the only mark I receive, that I escape his disdain. It shews me that he fears the event of a meeting. He does not, therefore, utterly deride the pusillanimity of my abortive attempt. O could I justify his good opinion! – All others, I doubt not, insult me by the most ludicrous suspicions; they are welcome. They judge me by their little-minded selves. But thou, O Harleigh! could I see thee once more! – in thy sight, thy loved sight, could I sink, at last, my sorrows and my disgrace to rest! to oblivion, to sleep eternal!' —

Vainly Juliet essayed to plead the cause of religion, and the duties of life; unanswered, unmarked, unheard, she talked but to the air. All that was uttered in return, began and ended alike with Harleigh, death, and annihilation.

CHAPTER LI

Juliet could not but be gratified by a circumstance so important to her reputation, with the Brinvilles, and with those among the inhabitants of Brighthelmstone to whom she was known, as that of being brought home by Miss Joddrel, after an adventure that must unavoidably raise curiosity, and that threatened to excite slander. For with however just a pride wronged innocence may disdain injurious aspersions, female fame, like the wife of Cæsar, ought never to be suspected.

The celerity of the motions of Elinor, nearly equalled the quickness of her ideas. Her lackey arrived the next morning, to help to convey Juliet, and her baggage, immediately to the dwelling of Mrs Ireton; with a note from his mistress, indicating that Mrs Ireton was already prepared to take her for a companion. 'An humble companion,' Elinor wrote, 'I need not add; I had nearly said a pitiful one; for who would voluntarily live with such an antidote to all the comforts of life, that has spirit, sense, or soul? O envied Ellis! how potent must be the passion, the infatuation, that can make Harleigh view such meanness as grace, and adore it as dignity! – O icy Ellis! – but the human heart would want strength to support such pre-eminent honour, were it bestowed upon a mind gifted for its appreciation!'

Then again, wishing her joy of her taste, she assured her that it was reciprocated; for Mrs Ireton was all impatience to display, to a new dependent, her fortune, her power, and her magnificence.

Juliet, with her answer of thanks for this service, wrote a few lines for Mrs Pierson, which she begged the messenger to deliver. They were to warn the imprudent, or deceived mother of the dangerous state of mind in which her daughter still continued; and to give her notice that Sir Lyell Sycamore, who could not be guarded against too carefully, was still in the neighbourhood.

With a mind revolting from a measure which, while prudence, if not necessity, dictated, choice and feeling opposed, she now quitted her mantua-maker's abode, to set out for her new destination; seeking to cheer herself that, at least, by this step, she should be secured from the licentious pursuit of Sir Lyell Sycamore; the envenomed shafts of calumny of the enraged Brinvilles; the perpetual terrour of debts; and the cruel apprehension of want.

She had not far to go; but the mortifications, for which she prepared herself, began by the very sight of the dwelling into which she was to enter. Mrs Ireton had taken the house of Mrs Howel: – that house in which Juliet had first, after her arrival in England, received consolation in her distresses; been melted by kindness; or animated by approbation. There, too, indeed, she had experienced the pain which she had felt the most severely; for there all the soothing consideration, so precious to her sorrows, had abruptly been broken off, to give place to an assault the most shocking upon her intentions, her probity, her character.

Here, too, she had suffered the cruel affront, and heartfelt grief, of seeing the ingenuous, amiable Lord Melbury forget what was due to the rights of hospitality; to his own character; and to the respect due to his sister: and here she had witnessed his sincere and candid repentance; here had been softened, touched, and penetrated by the impressive anguish of his humiliation.

These remembrances, and the various affecting and interesting ideas by which they were accompanied, gave a dejection to her thoughts, and a sadness to her air, that would have awakened an interest in her favour, in any one whose heart had been open to the feelings of others: but the person under whose protection she was now to place herself, was a stranger to every species of sensation that was not personal. And where the calls of self upon sensibility are unremitting, what must be the stock that will gift us, also, with supply sufficient for our fellow-creatures?

She found Mrs Ireton reclining upon a sofa; at the side of which, upon a green velvet cushion, lay a tiny old lap dog, whom a little boy, evidently too wanton to find pleasure but in mischief, was secretly tormenting, by displaying before him the breast bone of a chicken, which he had snatched from the platter of the animal; and which, the moment that he made it touch the mouth of the cur, he hid, with all its fat and its grease, in his own waistcoat pocket.

Near to these two almost equally indulged and spoilt animals, stood a nursery maid, with a duster and an hearth-broom in her hands, who was evidently incensed beyond her pittance of patience, from clearing away, repeatedly, their joint litter and dirt.

Scared, and keeping humbly aloof, near a window frame, stood, also, a little girl, of ten or twelve years of age, who, as Juliet afterwards heard from the angry nursery maid, was an orphan, that had been put to a charity school by Mrs Ireton, as her particular protegée; and who was now, for the eighth time, by the direction of her governess, come to solicit the arrears due from the very beginning of her school instruction.

Yet another trembler, though not one equally, at this moment, to be pitied, held the handle of the lock of the door; not having received intelligible orders to advance, or to depart. This was a young negro, who was the favourite, because the most submissive servant of Mrs Ireton; and whose trembling was simply from the fear that his lady might remark a grin which he could not repress, as he looked at the child and the dog.

Mrs Ireton herself, though her restless eye roved incessantly from object to object, in search of various food for her spleen, was ostensibly occupied in examining, and decrying, the goods of a Mercer; but when Juliet, finding herself unnoticed, was retreating, she called out, 'O, you are there, are you? I did not see you, I protest. But come this way, if you please. I can't possibly speak so far off.'

The authoritative tone in which this was uttered, joined to what Juliet observed of the general tyranny exercised around her, intimidated and shocked her; and she stood still, and nearly confounded.

Mrs Ireton, holding her hand above her eyes, as if to aid her sight, and stretching forward her head, said, 'Who is that? – pray who's there? – I imagined it had been a person I had sent for; but I must certainly be mistaken, as she does not come to me. Pray has any body here a spying glass? I really can't see so far off. I beg pardon for having such bad eyes! I hope you'll forgive it. Let me know, however, who it is, I beg.'

Juliet tried to speak, but felt so confused and disturbed what to answer, that she could not clearly articulate a word.

'You won't tell me, then?' continued Mrs Ireton, lowering her voice nearly to a whisper, 'or is it that I am not heard? Has any body got a speaking trumpet? or do you think my lungs so capacious and powerful, that they may take its place?'

Juliet, now, though most unwillingly, moved forward; and Mrs Ireton, surveying her, said, 'Yes, yes, I see who you are! I recollect you now, Mrs … Mrs … I forget your name, though, I protest. I can't recollect your name, I own. I'm quite ashamed, but I really cannot call it to mind. I must beg a little help. What is it? What is your name, Mrs … Mrs … Hay? – Mrs … What?'

Colouring and stammering, Juliet answered, that she had hoped Miss Joddrel would have saved her this explanation, by mentioning that she was called Miss Ellis.

'Called?' repeated Mrs Ireton; 'what do you mean by called? – who calls you? – What are you called for? – Why do you wait to be called? – And where are you called from?'

The entire silence of Juliet to these interrogatories, gave a moment to the mercer to ask for orders.

'You are in haste, Sir, are you?' said Mrs Ireton; 'I have your pardon to beg, too, have I? I am really very unfortunate this morning. However, pray take your things away, Sir, if it's so immensely troublesome to you to exhibit them. Only be so good as to acquaint your chief, whoever he may be, that you had not time to wait for me to make any purchase.'

The man offered the humblest apologies, which were all disdained; and self-defending excuses, which were all retorted; he was peremptorily ordered to be gone; with an assurance that he should answer for his disrespect to his master; who, she flattered herself, would give him a lesson of better behaviour, by the loss of his employment.

Harassed with apprehension of what she had to expect in this new residence, Juliet would silently have followed him.

'Stay, Ma'am, stay!' cried Mrs Ireton; 'give me leave to ask one question: – whither are you going, Mrs … what's your name?'

'I … I feared, Madam, that I had come too soon.'

'O, that's it, is it? I have not paid you sufficient attention, perhaps? – Nay it's very likely. I did not run up to receive you, I confess. I did not open my arms to embrace you, I own! It was very wrong of me, certainly. But I am apt to forget myself. I want a flapper prodigiously. I know nothing of life, – nothing of manners. Perhaps you will be so good as to become my monitress? 'Twill be vastly kind of you. And who knows but, in time, you may form me? How happy it will be if you can make something of me!'

The maid, now, tired of wiping up splash after splash, and rubbing out spot after spot; finding her work always renewed by the mischievous little boy, was sullenly walking to the other end of the room.

'O, you're departing too, are you?' said Mrs Ireton; 'and pray who dismissed you? whose commands have you for going? Inform me, I beg, who it is that is so kind as to take the trouble off my hands, of ordering my servants? I ought at least to make them my humble acknowledgements. There's nothing so frightful as ingratitude.'

The maid, not comprehending this irony, grumblingly answered, that she had wiped up the grease and the slops till her arms ached; for the little boy made more dirt and nastiness than the cur himself.

'The boy? – The cur? – What's all this?' cried Mrs Ireton; 'who, and what, is the woman talking of? The boy? Has the boy no name? – The cur? Have you no more respect for your lady's lap dog? – Grease too? – Nastiness! – you turn me sick! I am ready to faint! What horrible images you present to me! Has nobody any salts? any lavendar-water? How unfortunate it is to have such nerves, such sensations, when one lives with such mere speaking machines!'

She then cast around her eyes, with a look of silent, but pathetic appeal to the sensibility of all who were within sight, against this unheard of indignity; but her speech was soon restored, from mingled wrath and surprise, upon perceiving her favourite young negro nearly suffocating with stifled laughter, though thrusting both his knuckles into his capacious mouth, to prevent its loud explosion.

'So this amuses you, does it, Sir? You think it very comical? You are so kind as to be entertained, are you? How happy I am to give you so much pleasure! How proud I ought to be to afford you such diversion! I shall make it my business to shew my sense of my good fortune; and, to give you a proof, Sir, of my desire to contribute to your gaiety, to-morrow morning I will have you shipped back to the West Indies. And there, that your joy may be complete, I shall issue orders that you may be striped till you jump, and that you may jump, – you little black imp! – between every stripe!'

The foolish mirth of poor Mungo was now converted into the fearfulest dismay. He dropt upon his knees to implore forgiveness; but he was peremptorily ordered to depart, with an assurance that he should keep up his fine spirits upon bread and water for a fortnight.

If disgust, now, was painted upon every feature of the face of Juliet, at this mixture of forced derision with but too natural inhumanity, the feeling which excited that expression was by no means softened, by seeing Mrs Ireton turn next to the timid young orphan, imperiously saying, 'And you, Ma'am, what may you stand there for, with your hands before you? Have you nothing better to do with them? Can't you find out some way to make them more useful? or do you hold it more fitting to consider them as only ornamental? They are very pretty, to be sure. I say nothing to the contrary of that. But I should suppose you don't quite intend to reserve them for mere objects of admiration? You don't absolutely mean, I presume, to devote them to the painter's eye? or to destine them to the sculptor's chisel? I should think not, at least. I should imagine not. I beg you to set me right if I am wrong.'

The poor little girl, staring, and looking every way around to find some meaning for what she did not comprehend, could only utter a faint 'Ma'am!' in a tone of so much fear and distress, that Juliet, unable, silently, to witness oppression so wanton, came forward to say, 'The poor child, Ma'am, only wishes to understand your commands, that she may obey them.'

'O! they are not clear, I suppose? They are too abstruse, I imagine?' contemptuously replied Mrs Ireton. 'And you, who are kind enough to offer yourself for my companion; who think yourself sufficiently accomplished to amuse, – perhaps instruct me, – you, also, have not the wit to find out, what a little chit of an ordinary girl can do better with her hands, than to stand still, pulling her own fingers?'

Juliet, now, believing that she had discovered what was meant, kindly took the little girl by the arm, and pointed to the just overturned water-bason of the dog.

'But I don't know where to get a cloth, Ma'am?' said the child.

'A cloth? – In my wardrobe, to be sure!' cried Mrs Ireton; 'amongst my gowns, and caps, and hats. Where else should there be dirty cloths, and dusters, and dish-clouts? Do you know of any other place where they are likely to be found? Why don't you answer?'

'Ma'am?'

'You never heard, perhaps, of such a place as a kitchen? You don't know where it is? nor what it means? You have only heard talk of drawing-rooms, dressing-rooms, boudoirs? or, perhaps, sometimes, of a corridor, or a vestibule, or an anti-chamber? But nothing beyond! – A kitchen! – O, fie, fie!'

Juliet now hurried the little girl away, to demand a cloth of the house maid; but the moment that she returned with it, Mrs Ireton called out, 'And what would you do, now, Ma'am? Make yourself all dirt and filth, that you may go back to your school, to shew the delicate state of my house? To make your mistress, and all her brats, believe that I live in a pig-stie? Or to spread abroad that I have not servants enough to do my work, and that I seize upon you to supply their place? But I beg your pardon; perhaps that may be your way to shew your gratitude? To manifest your sense of my saving you from the work-house? to reward me for snatching you from beggary, and want, and starving?'

The poor little girl burst into tears, but courtsied, and quitted the room; while Mrs Ireton called after her, to desire that she would acquaint her governess, that she should certainly be paid the following week.