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“Nothing, if you please,” said her ladyship, with more than her usual haughtiness. “The young lady to whom you allude is under Lady Frances Somerset’s protection, not mine; and whatever you do or say, I beg that in this affair the name of Lady Diana Chillingworth may not be used.”

She turned her back upon the disconcerted milliner as she finished this speech, and walked to the furthest end of the long room, followed by the constant flatterer of all her humours, Miss Burrage.

The milliner and Mrs. Bertrand now began to console themselves for the mortification they had received from her ladyship’s pride, and for the insolent forgetfulness of her companion, by abusing them both in a low voice. Mrs. Bertrand began with, “Her ladyship’s so touchy and so proud; she’s as high as the moon, and higher.”

“Oh, all the Chillingworths, by all accounts, are so,” said Mrs. Puffit; “but then, to be sure, they have a right to be so if any body has, for they certainly are real high-horn people. But I can’t tolerate to see some people, that aren’t no ways born nor entitled to it, give themselves such airs as some people do. Now, there’s that Miss Burrage, that pretends not to know me, ma’am.”

“And me, ma’am,–just the same: such provoking assurance–I that knew her from this high.”

“On St. Augustin’s Back, you know,” said Mrs. Puffit.

“On St. Augustin’s Back, you know,” echoed Mrs. Bertrand.

“So I told her this morning, ma’am,” said Mrs. Puffit.

“And so I told her this evening, ma’am, when the three Miss Herrings came in to give me a call in their way to the play; girls that she used to walk with, ma’am, for ever and ever in the green, you know.”

“Yes; and that she was always glad to drink tea with, ma’am, when asked, you know,” said Mrs. Puffit.

“Well, ma’am,” pursued Mrs. Bertrand, “here she had the impudence to pretend not to know them. She takes up her glass–my Lady Di. herself couldn’t have done it better, and squeezes up her ugly face this way, pretending to be near-sighted, though she can see as well as you or I can.”

“Such airs! she near-sighted!” said Mrs. Puffit: “what will the world come to!”

“Oh, I wish her pride may have a fall,” resumed the provoked milliner, as soon as she had breath. “I dare to say now she wouldn’t know her own relations if she was to meet them; I’d lay any wager she would not vouchsafe a curtsy to that good old John Barker, the friend of her father, you know, who gave up to this Miss Burrage I don’t know how many hundreds of pounds, that were due to him, or else miss wouldn’t have had a farthing in the world; yet now, I’ll be bound, she’d forget this as well as St. Augustin’s Back, and wouldn’t know John Barker from Abraham; and I don’t doubt that she’d pull out her glass at her aunt Dinah, because she is a cheesemonger’s widow.”

“Oh no,” said Mrs. Bertrand, “she couldn’t have the baseness to be near-sighted to good Dinah Plait, that bred her up, and was all in all to her.”

Just as Mrs. Bertrand finished speaking, into the fruit-shop walked the very persons of whom she had been talking–Dinah Plait and Mr. Barker.

“Mrs. Dinah Plait, I declare!” exclaimed Mrs. Bertrand.

“I never was so glad to see you, Mrs. Plait and Mr. Barker, in all my days,” said Mrs. Puffit.

“Why you should be so particularly glad to see me, Mrs. Puffit, I don’t know,” said Mr. Barker, laughing; “but I’m not surprised Dinah Plait should he a welcome guest wherever she goes, especially with a purse full of guineas in her hand.”

“Friend Bertrand,” said Dinah Plait, producing a purse which she held under her cloak, “I am come to restore this purse to its rightful owner: after a great deal of trouble, John Barker (who never thinks it a trouble to do good) hath traced her to your house.”