“‘You’ll have me reeling in the head,’ she says. ‘Take thirteen sovereigns from my purse, and get out of my room and don’t let me hear another word of that there maddening bill!’ And so you can keep the change, my love. And, if you’d believe it, just out of cussedness, the young gentleman what’s annoyed her so prodigious has the boldness to come knocking at our hall door and demanding urgent, through Mr. Blandfoot, the butler, a few moments’ conversation with her ladyship. My Lady having given orders that he was not to be admitted, the scamp sends for the butler—well, that’s about dished him, I can tell you!
“‘Tell him, Blandfoot,’ says my lady, ‘that I don’t give alms at the door. Tell him,’ she says, ‘to go and earn his living. I don’t hold,’ she says, ‘with able-bodied beggars!’”
“Oh,” said Pamela, her thoughts flying back with compassion to the dashing young gentleman on the doorstep, “what a cruel thing to say. ’Tis insulting misfortune.”
“Insulting fiddlesticks! Here, hasten, you baggage, or you’ll lose your good place, and I’ve had enough of you for one day, I can tell you that.”
“And what a darling, sweet auntie you are!” said the second Miss Pounce, as she tied on her shepherdess hat with knowing little peeps at the mirror. “’Tain’t any wonder I love you. Ta-ta.”
She dropped the sovereigns into her worn reticule, kissed her hand from the door in sarcastic farewell, and departed.
With fourteen shillings and twopence to the good in her pocket, Pamela felt a singular sense of independence. Instead of hurrying back into the heat, crowd, and toil of Cheapside, she turned her steps towards Hyde Park, the green boughs of which seemed to beckon to her from the top of the street.
“I’ll go and sit under the trees,” thought the girl. “An idea for a hat has come into my mind, and I’ll work it out and let Mrs. Alderman Gruntle and her cradle and the pinking go to the deuce.”
She found a retired spot in the shade, and, the turf being dry and inviting, stretched herself luxuriously at full length to stare upwards at the odd little triangles and stars of blue sky visible through the interlacing leaves above her.
Composing her hat with the zest of a poet his verses, she lay at ease, in great content, when she was startled by the sound of rapid footsteps on the sward.