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“Blue–‘cerulean blue.’ Here, child,” said Angelina, turning to Betty Williams, “here’s a riband for you.”

Betty Williams did not hear, for Betty was fascinated by the eyes of the great doll, opposite to which she stood fixed.

“Lord, what a fine lady! and how hur stares at Betty Williams!” thought she: “I wish hur would take her eyes off me.”

“Betty! Betty Williams!–a riband for you,” cried Angelina, in a louder tone.

Betty started–“Miss!–a riband!” She ran forward, and, in pushing by the doll, threw it backward: Mrs. Puffit caught it in her arms, and Betty, stopping short, curtsied, and said to the doll–“Peg pardon, miss–peg pardon, miss–tit I hurt you?–peg pardon. Pless us! ’tis a toll, and no woman, I teclare.”

The milliner and Jesse now burst into uncontrollable, and, as Angelina feared, “unextinguishable laughter.” Nothing is so distressing to a sentimental heroine as ridicule: Miss Warwick perceived that she had her share of that which Betty Williams excited; and she who imagined herself to be capable of “combating, in all its Proteus forms, the system of social slavery,” was unable to withstand the laughter of a milliner and her ‘prentice.

“Do you please to want any thing else, ma’am?” said Mrs. Puffit, in a saucy tone–“Rouge, perhaps?”

“I wish to know, madam,” said Angelina, “whether a lady of the name of Hodges does not lodge here?”

“A lady of the name of Hodges!–no, ma’am–I’m very particular about lodgers–no such lady ever lodged with me.–Jesse! to the door–quick!– Lady Mary Tasselton’s carriage.”

Angelina hastily rose and departed. Whilst Jesse ran to the door, and whilst Mrs. Puffit’s attention was fixed upon Lady Mary Tasselton’s carriage, Betty Williams twitched from off the doll’s shoulders the remainder of the piece of Valenciennes lace which had been left there. “Since hur’s only wood, I’ll make free,” said she to herself, and she carried off the lace unobserved.

Angelina’s impatience to find her Araminta was increased, by the dread of meeting Lady Di. Chillingworth in every carriage that passed, and in every shop where she might call. At the next house at which the coachman stopped, the words, Dinah Plait, relict of Jonas Plait, cheesemonger, were written in large letters over the shop-door. Angelina thought she was in no danger of meeting her ladyship here, and she alighted. There was no one in the shop but a child of seven years old; he could not understand well what Angelina or Betty said, but he ran to call his aunt. Dinah Plait was at dinner; and when the child opened the door of the parlour, there came forth such a savoury smell, that Betty Williams, who was extremely hungry, could not forbear putting her head in, to see what was upon the table.

“Pless hur! heggs and pacon and toasted cheese–Cot pless hur!” exclaimed Betty.

“Aunt Dinah,” said the child, “here are two women in some great distress, they told me–and astray and hungry.”

“In some great distress, and astray and hungry?–then let them in here, child, this minute.”

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–“