“Now,” said she to herself, “I have the choice of three roads. I must go—to Bridewell, to the river, or to Aunt Lydia. It had better be to Aunt Lydia.”
“Stripes and buttons,” who had not forgotten how the younger Miss Pounce had snubbed him on their first meeting, informed her that she might “hunt up the old girl for herself”; her ladyship having gone out her ladyship’s woman, if not in her own apartment, might be found in her ladyship’s chamber.
And here indeed, with a not altogether comfortably beating heart, Pamela confronted her aunt.
Lydia stared, as if beholding a ghost.
“La, whatever’s to do?”
“The money’s gone,” said Pamela with great firmness.
She had made up her mind from the first that nothing should induce her to betray either the unfortunate young gentleman or her own rash interference with his concerns.
“Gone? Gone, miss?”
Pamela opened her reticule and mutely took out from it a vinaigrette, three pennies, a sixpence, and a pocket handkerchief, and showed the remaining vacuum to Lydia’s horrified eyes.