Then letting fall two guineas and a half upon the table, 'There, my dear,' he cried, in a tone of chagrin, 'there's all I have been able to gather amongst all your scholars put together! What they do with their money I don't know; but they are all very poor, they tell me: except Lady Arramede; and she's so rich, that she can't possibly attend, she says, to such pitiful claims: though I said to her, If the sum, Ma'am, is too small for your ladyship's notice, the best way to shew your magnificence, is to make it greater; which will also be very acceptable to this young person. But she did not mind me. She only said that you might apply to her steward at Christmas, which was the time, she believed, when he settled her affairs; but as to herself, she never meddled with such insignificant matters.' 'Christmas?' repeated Ellis; 'and 'tis now but the beginning of April!' 'I went next to the Miss Crawleys; but they only fell a laughing. All I could say, and all I could do, and all I could represent, only set 'em a laughing. I never knew what at. Nor they, neither. But they did not laugh the less for that. One of them stretched her mouth so wide, that I was afraid she would have cut her cheeks through to her ears: and t'other frightened me still more, for she giggled herself so black in the face, that I thought she must have expired in a fit. And not one among us knew what it was all for! But the more I stared at them, the louder they laughed. They never stopt till they were so weak that they could not stand; and then they held their sides, and were quiet enough; till I happened to ask them, if they had done? and that set them off again. They are merry little souls; not very heavy, I believe, in the head: I don't suppose they have a thought above once in a twelve-month.' He had then applied to their brother. Sir Marmaduke professed himself extremely shocked, at the circumstances which had prevented his sisters from profiting longer by the instructions of so fine a virtuosa as The Ellis; but he hoped that something might yet be adjusted for the future, as he was utterly ashamed to offer such a trifle as this account, to so accomplished a young person as The Ellis. 'I told him, then,' continued Mr Giles, 'that it was no trifle to you, for you were so very poor that you could not pay for your clothes; but I could never obtain any other answer from him, than that he had too much consideration for you, to think of offering you a sum so unworthy your merit.' 'This, indeed, is rather singular,' cried Ellis, half smiling, 'that the smallness of my demands should make one person decline paying me from contempt, and another, from respect!'