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“How should Miss Burrage know you, sir, or any body here?” said Lady Diana, looking round, as if upon beings of a species different from her own.

“How should she know her own aunt that bred her up?” said the invincible John Barker, “and me who have had her on my knee a hundred times, giving her barley-sugar till she was sick?”

“Sick! I am sure you make me sick,” said Lady Diana. “Sir, that young lady is one of the Burrages of Dorsetshire, as good a family as any in England.”

“Madam,” said John Barker, replying in a solemnity of tone equal to her ladyship’s, “that young lady is one of the Burrages of Bristol, drysalters; niece to Dinah Plait, who is widow to a man, who was, in his time, as honest a cheesemonger as any in England.”

“Miss Burrage!–My God!–don’t you speak!” cried Lady Diana, in a voice of terror.

“The young lady is bashful, my lady, among strangers,” said Mrs. Bertrand.

“Oh, Hester Burrage, is this kind of thee?” said Dinah Plait, with in accent of mixed sorrow and affection; “but thou art my niece, and I forgive thee.”

“A cheesemonger’s niece!” cried Lady Diana, with horror; “how have I been deceived! But this is the consequence of making acquaintance at Buxton, and those watering-places: I’ve done with her, however. Lord bless me! here comes my sister, Lady Frances! Good heavens! my dear,” continued her ladyship, going to meet her sister, and drawing her into the recess at the farthest end of the room, “here are more misfortunes–misfortunes without end. What will the world say? Here’s this Miss Burrage,–take no more notice of her, sister; she’s an impostor; who do you think she turns out to be? Daughter to a drysalter, niece to a cheesemonger! Only conceive!-a person that has been going about with me every where!–What will the world say?”

“That it is very imprudent to have unknown friends, my dear,” replied Lady Frances. “The best thing you can possibly do is to say nothing about the matter, and to receive this penitent ward of yours without reproaches; for if you talk of her unknown friends, the world will certainly talk of yours.”

Lady Diana drew back with haughtiness when her sister offered to put Miss Warwick’s hands into hers; but she condescended to say, after an apparent struggle with herself, “I am happy to hear, Miss Warwick, that you have returned to your senses. Lady Frances takes you under her protection, I understand; at which, for all our sakes, I rejoice; and I have only one piece of advice, Miss Warwick, to give you–“

“Keep it till after the play, my dear Diana,” whispered Lady Frances; “it will have more effect.”

“The play!–Bless me!” said Lady Diana, “why, you have contrived to make Miss Warwick fit to be seen, I protest. But, after all I have gone through to-night, how can I appear in public? My dear, this Miss Burrage’s business has given me such a shock,–such nervous affections!”

“Nervous affections!–Some people, I do believe, have none but nervous affections,” thought Lady Frances.

“Permit me,” said Mrs. Dinah Plait, coming up to Lady Frances, and presenting Miss Warwick’s purse–“permit me, as thou seemest to be a friend to this young lady, to restore to thee her purse, which she left by mistake at my house this forenoon. I hope she is better, poor thing!”

“She is better, and I thank you for her, madam,” said Lady Frances, who was struck with the obliging manner and benevolent countenance of Dinah Plait, and who did not think herself contaminated by standing in the same room with the widow of a cheesemonger.

“Let me thank you myself, madam,” said Angelina; “I am perfectly in my senses now, I can assure you; and I shall never forget the kindness which you and this benevolent gentleman showed me when you thought I was in real distress.”

“Some people are more grateful than other people,” said Mrs. Puffit, looking at Miss Burrage, who in mortified, sullen silence, followed the aunt and the benefactor of whom she was ashamed, and who had reason to be ashamed of her.

We do not imagine that our readers can be much interested for a young lady who was such a compound of pride and meanness; we shall therefore only add, that her future life was spent on St. Augustin’s Back, where she made herself at once as ridiculous and as unhappy as she deserved to be.

As for our heroine, under the friendly and judicious care of Lady Frances Somerset, she acquired that which is more useful to the possessor than genius–good sense. Instead of rambling over the world in search of an unknown friend, she attached herself to those of whose worth she received proofs more convincing than a letter of three folio sheets, stuffed with sentimental nonsense. In short, we have now, in the name of Angelina Warwick, the pleasure to assure all those whom it may concern, that it is possible for a young lady of sixteen to cure herself of the affectation of sensibility, and the folly of romance.