Tales and Novels — Volume 01: Moral TalesEdgeworth, Maria
General
Tales and Novels — Volume 01: Moral Tales
Edgeworth, Maria
Fiction
"Not _my_ Miss Hodges! not my Araminta! alas!"
"No, ma'am," said the little girl; "I am only Letty Hodges."
Several of her companions now began to titter.
"These girls," said Angelina to herself, "take me for a fool;" and,
turning to Mrs. Porett, she apologized for the trouble she had given, in
language as little romantic as she could condescend to use.
"Tid you bid me, miss, wait in the coach, or the passage?" cried Betty
Williams, forcing her way in at the door, so as almost to push down the
dancing-master, who stood with his back to it. Betty stared round,
and dropped curtsy after curtsy, whilst the young ladies laughed
and whispered, and whispered and laughed; and the words,
odd--vulgar--strange--who is she?--what is she?--reached Miss Warwick.
"This Welsh girl," thought she, "is my torment. Wherever I go she makes
me share the ridicule of her folly."
Clara Hope, one of the young ladies, saw and pitied Angelina's
confusion.
"Gif over, an ye have any gude nature--gif over your whispering and
laughing," said Clara to her companions: "ken ye not ye make her so
bashful, she'd fain hide her face wi' her twa hands."
But it was in vain that the good-natured Clara Hope remonstrated: her
companions could not forbear tittering, as Betty Williams, upon Miss
Warwick's laying the blame of the mistake on her, replied in a strong
Welsh accent--"I will swear almost the name was Porett or Plait, where
our Miss Hodges tid always lodge in Pristol. Porett, or Plait, or
Puffit, or some of her names that pekin with a p and ent with at."
Angelina, quite _overpowered_, shrunk back, as Betty bawled out her
vindication, and she was yet more confused, when Monsieur Richelet, the
dancing-master, at this unlucky instant, came up to her, and with
an elegant bow, said, "It is not difficult to see by her air, that
mademoiselle dances superiorly. Mademoiselle vould she do me de
plaisir--de honneur to dance one minuet?"
"Oh, if she would but dance!" whispered some of the group of young
ladies.
"Excuse me, sir," said Miss Warwick.
"Not a minuet?--den a minuet de la cour, a cotillon, or contredanse, or
reel; vatever mademoiselle please vill do us honneur."
Angelina, with a mixture of impatience and confusion, repeated, "Excuse
me, sir--I am going--I interrupt--I beg I may not interrupt."
"A coot morrow to you all, creat and small," said Betty Williams,
curtsying awkwardly at the door as she went out before Miss Warwick.
The young ladies were now diverted so much beyond the bounds of decorum,
that Mrs. Porett was obliged to call them to order.
"Oh, my Araminta, what scenes have I gone through! to what derision have
I exposed myself for your sake!" said our heroine to herself.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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