'What is your lordship's pleasure respecting the Sharpleys? Shall I remand them to prison for another examination?'
'My dear father,' said I, 'for my sake have pity on Mr. Sharpley and his wife, for indeed they have been very kind to me.'
'If they have been so, my child,' replied my father, 'I shall certainly show them lenity, but I wish first to hear your story, and then I shall know how to proceed. So, Sir Robert, if you will please to detain these people till to-morrow, I shall esteem it a favour.'
We then took our leave, and returned home in my father's carriage, and was soon conveyed to that house where the day before I had stood as a poor little pedlar, but which I now entered as the only child of the Earl of Malbourne.
Lady Anne finds her father.—Page 405.
We proceeded to the drawing-room, and my father then informed me that the lady who had shown me so much kindness was his sister, Lady Caroline Beaumont. The young lady, who appeared about thirteen, was my cousin, Miss Beaumont; and another young lady, who seemed about eleven, was also my cousin, Miss Ellen Beaumont.
Refreshments were now brought, and my father and aunt, when they understood that I had been up the whole night, insisted that I should go to bed, and try to get a little rest before dinner, which I did, and in about two hours arose very much refreshed.
In the course of the evening I gave my father and new-found relations a circumstantial detail of everything that had happened to me as far back as I could remember. When I gave the account of my mother's death at the inn they were affected even to tears.