He started again at this question, and looked a little scared; but, after a minute's perplexity, he suddenly arose, and hastily refolding, and placing them upon the chimney-piece, said, with a good deal of confusion, 'I beg your pardon a thousand times! I don't well know how this happened; but the chimney-piece looks so like my own,--and the fire was so comfortable,--that I suppose I thought I was at home, and took that parcel for one that the servant had put there for me. And I was wondering to myself when I had ordered all those linens, and muslins, and the like: I could not recollect one article of them.' He then, after again begging her pardon, took leave. While Ellis was ruminating whether this strange conduct were the effect of absence, oddity, or curiosity, he abruptly returned, and said, 'I protest I was going without my errand, at last! Did you bid me tell my cousin that all those bills were paid?' 'All paid?--alas, no!--not one of them!' 'And why not? You should always pay your bills, my dear.' Ellis looked at him in much perplexity, to see whether this were uttered as a sneer, or as a remonstrance; but soon perceived, by the earnestness of his countenance, that it was the latter; and then, with a sigh, answered, 'You are undoubtedly right, Sir! I am the first to condemn all that appears against me! But I made my late attempt with a persuasion that I was as secure of repaying others, as of serving myself. I would not, else, have run any risk, where I should not have been the sole sufferer.' 'But what,' said he, staring, and shutting the door, and not seeming to comprehend her, 'what is the reason that you can't pay your bills?' 'A very simple reason, Sir--I have not the power!' 'Not the power?--what, are you very poor, then?' Ellis could not forbear smiling, but seeing him put his hand in his pocket, hastened to answer, 'Yes, Sir,--but very proud, too! I am sometimes, therefore, involved in the double distress, of being obliged to refuse the very assistance I require.' 'But you would not refuse mine!' 'Without a moment's hesitation!' 'Would you, indeed? And from what motive?' Again Ellis could scarcely keep her countenance, at a question so unexpected, while she answered, 'From the customs, Sir, of the world, I have been brought up to avoid all obligations with strangers.' 'How so? I don't at all see that. Have you not an obligation to that linen draper, and hosier, and I don't know who, there, upon your chimney-piece, if you take their things, and don't pay for them?' Yet more struck with the sense of unbiassed equity manifested by this question, than by the simplicity shewn by that which had preceded it, Ellis felt her face suffused with shame, as she replied, 'I blush to have incurred such a reprimand; but I hope to convince you, by the exertions which I shall not a moment delay making, how little it is my intention to practise any such injustice; and how wide it would be from my approbation.'