Juliet solemnly protested, that the severest necessity could alone have brought her into the pecuniary difficulties under which she laboured; the money to which Miss Bydel alluded being merely a deposit which she held in her hands, and for which she was accountable. 'Well, that's droll enough,' said Miss Bydel, 'that a young person, not worth a penny in the world, should have the care of other people's money! I should like to know what sort of persons they must be, that can think of making such a person their steward!' Young Gooch said that it would not be his father, for one, who would do it; and Mr Scope was preparing an elaborate dissertation upon the nature of confidence, with regard to money-matters, in a great state; when Miss Bydel, charmed to have pronounced a sentence which seemed to accord with every one's opinion, ostentatiously added, 'I should like, I say, Mrs Ellis, to know what sort of person it could be, that would trust a person with one's cash, without enquiring into their circumstances? for though, upon hearing that a person has got nothing, one may give 'em something, one must be no better than a fool to make them one's banker.' Juliet, who could not enter into any explanation, stammered, coloured, and from the horrour of seeing that she was suspected, wore an air of seeming apprehensive of detection. A short pause ensued, during which every one fixed his eyes upon her face, save Sir Jaspar; who seemed studying a portrait upon his snuff-box. Her immediate wish, in this disturbance, was to clear herself from so terrible an aspersion, by paying Miss Bydel, as she had paid her other creditors, from the store of Harleigh; but her wishes, tamed now by misfortune and disappointment, were too submissively under the controul of fear and discretion, to suffer her to act from their first dictates: and a moment's reflection pointed out, that, joined to the impropriety of such a measure with respect to Harleigh himself, it would be liable, more than any other, to give her the air of an impostor, who possessed money that she could either employ, or disclaim all title to, at her pleasure. Calling, therefore, for composure from conscious integrity, she made known her project of applying once more to Miss Matson, for work; and earnestly supplicated for the influence of Miss Bydel, that this second application might not, also, be vain. The eyes of the attentive Sir Jaspar, as he raised them from his snuff-box, now spoke respect mingled with pity. 'As to recommending you to Miss Matson, Mrs Ellis,' answered Miss Bydel, 'it's out of all reason to demand such a thing, when I can't tell who you are myself; and only know that you have got money in your hands nobody knows how, nor what for.'