Yet the opening to this interview seemed not very propitious: Miss Bydel, instead of ascending the stairs, as usual, seated herself with Miss Matson, and sent for Ellis; who obeyed the call with extreme ill will, conscious how little fit for a milliner's shop, was either what she might be called upon to say, or what she might be constrained to hear. Miss Bydel failed not to take this opportunity of making sundry enquiries into the manner in which Ellis passed her time; whom she saw; whither she went; what sort of table she kept; and what allowance she made for the trouble which she gave to the servants. 'Well, my dear,' she cried, 'this is but a bad affair, this business of the day before yesterday. I have been to Mrs Maple, and I have worked out the truth, at last; though nobody would believe the pains it cost me before I could sift it to the bottom. However, the most extraordinary part is, that when all came to all, she did not tell me who you were! for she persists she don't so much as know it herself!' The surprise of the milliners, and the disturbance of Ellis, were alike unheeded by Miss Bydel, whose sole solicitude was to come to the point. 'Now the thing I principally want to know, my dear, is whether this is true? for though I would not for ever so much doubt Mrs Maple's word, this is such a prodigious old thing, that I can't give it the least credit.' Ellis, in much confusion, besought that she would have the goodness to walk up stairs. 'No, no; we are very well here; only be so kind as to let me know why you make such a secret of who you are? Every body asks me the question, go where I will; and it's making me look no better than a fool; to think I should be at such an expence as to hire a harp for a person I know nothing of.' Affrighted at the effect which this display of her poverty, and detection of its mystery, might produce upon her hostess, Ellis was again entreating for a _tete a tete_, when Mr Riley, descending from his room to pass through the shop, exclaimed, 'Ah ha! the Demoiselle? Why I had never the pleasure to meet you down here before, Ma'am?' 'Well, if this is not the gentleman who told us all those odd things about you at the concert!' cried Miss Bydel: 'I should not be sorry to speak a word or two to him myself. You were one of the passengers, I think, Sir, who came over in the same boat with Mrs Maple? And glad enough you must have been to have got back; though I suppose you were only there upon business, Sir?' 'Not a whit, Madam! not a whit, faith! I never make bad better. I make that a rule. I always state the worst, that is to say the truth, in my own case as well as in my neighbour's.' 'Why then pray, Sir, if it's no secret,--what might be the reason of your going over to such a place?'