Ellis, who every moment expected this question, had prepared herself to listen to it with apparent unconcern: but Selina, tittering, and again running up to her, and pinching her arm, asked whether it were not she, that that droll man meant by the black-skinned girl? 'She was a good funny girl, faith!' continued Riley. 'I was prodigiously diverted with her. Yet we did nothing but quarrel. Though I don't know why. But I could never find out who she was. I believe the devil himself could not have made her speak.' The continual little laughs of Selina, whom no supplications of Ellis could keep quiet, now attracted the notice of Lady Kendover; which so palpably encreased the confusion of Ellis, that the attention of her ladyship was soon transferred to herself. 'She was but an odd fish, I believe, after all,' Riley went on; 'for, one day, when I was sauntering along Oxford Street, who should I meet but the noble Admiral? the only one of our set I have seen, till this moment, since I left Dover. And when we talked over our adventures, and I asked him if he knew any thing of the Demoiselle, how do you think she had served him? She's a comical hand, faith! Only guess!' Ellis, now, apprehensive of some strange attack, involuntarily, looked at him, with as much amazement and attention, as he began to excite in all others who were near him; while Mrs Maple, personally alarmed, demanded whether the Admiral had found out that any fraud had been practised upon him by that person? 'Fraud? ay, fraud enough!' cried Riley. 'She choused him neatly out of the hire of her place in the Diligence; besides that guinea that we all saw him give her.' Ellis now coloured deeply; and Ireton, heartily laughing, repeated the word 'choused?' while Mrs Maple, off all guard, looked fiercely at Ellis, and exclaimed, 'This is just what I have all along expected! And who can tell who else may have been pilfered? I protest I don't think myself safe yet.' This hasty speech raised a lively curiosity in all around; for all around had become listeners, from the loud voice of Riley; who now related that the Admiral, having paid the full fare for bringing the black-skinned girl to town, had called at the inn at which the stage puts up in London, to enquire, deeming her a stranger, whether she were safely arrived; and there he had been informed, that she had never made use of her place. Ellis had no time to dwell upon the cruel, but natural misconstruction, from the change of her plan, which had thus lost her the good opinion of the benevolent Admiral; the speech which followed from Mrs Maple was yet more terrific. 'I have not the least doubt, then,' said that lady, in a tone of mingled triumph and rage, 'that she put the money for her place into her pocket, as well as the guinea, while she wheedled Mrs Ireton into bringing her up to town gratis! for I was all along sure she was an adventurer and an impostor; with her blacks, and her whites, and her double face!'--