On the following morning, her father told her that he had met Mr. Robertson at the Post Office, and had been told by him that he should do himself the pleasure of making a morning call. "Therefore, Selina, I shall leave you to entertain him," said Mr. Mansel, "for I have made an appointment with Mr. Thinwall this morning, to go with him to look at a block of houses he is anxious to sell me." Selina repaired to her room to get her sewing: and taking a cent from her purse, she laid it in her work-basket and went down stairs to be ready for the visit of Mr. Robertson. While waiting for him, she happened to look at the cent, and perceived that it was one of the very earliest coinage, the date being 1793. She had heard these cents described, but had never before seen one. The head of Liberty was characterized by the lawless freedom of her hair, the flakes of which were all flying wildly back from her forehead and cheek, and seemed to be blowing away in a strong north-wester; and she carried over her shoulder a staff surmounted with a cap. On the reverse, there was (instead of the olive wreath) a circular chain, whose links signified the union of the States. Our heroine was making a collection of curious coins, and she was so strongly tempted by the opportunity of adding this to the number, that she determined on keeping it for that purpose. She was just rising to go up stairs and get another as a substitute, when Mr. Robertson entered the parlour. Selina was glad to see him, hoping that this visit would make a final settlement of the eternal cent. But she was also struck with the idea that it would be very awkward to ask him if the barkeeper had given him the one she had transmitted to him the evening before. She feared that the gentleman might reply in the affirmative, even if he had not really received it, and she felt a persuasion that it had entirely escaped the memory of Mr. Muddler. Not having sufficient self-possession to help her out of the difficulty, she hastily slipped the old cent back into her work-basket, and looked confused and foolish, and answered incoherently to Mr. Robertson's salutation. He saw her embarrassment, and augured favourably from it: but he cautiously determined not to allow himself to proceed too rapidly. He commenced the conversation by informing her that sugars had declined a shade, but that coffee was active, and cotton firm; and he then prosed off into a long mercantile story, of which Selina heard and understood nothing: her ideas, when in presence of Mr. Robertson, being now unable to take any other form than that of a piece of copper. Longing to go for another cent, and regretting that she had not brought down her purse, she sat uneasy and disconcerted: the delighted Robertson pausing in the midst of his tierces of rice, seroons of indigo, carboys of tar, and quintals of codfish, to look at the heightened colour of her cheek, and to give it the interpretation he most desired.