Tales and Novels — Volume 01: Moral TalesEdgeworth, Maria
General
Tales and Novels — Volume 01: Moral Tales
Edgeworth, Maria
Fiction
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."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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