'Who are you?' cried she, starting up quite pale and horror-struck. 'In the name of all that is dreadful, who can you be?'
'Your own niece!' said I, meekly kneeling to receive her blessing—'Lady Cherubina De Willoughby, the daughter of your ladyship's deceased brother, Lord De Willoughby, and of his much injured wife, the Lady Hysterica Belamour!'
'Never heard of such persons in all my life!' cried she, ringing the bell furiously.
'Pray,' said I, 'be calm. Act with dignity in this affair. Do not disgrace our family. On my honour, I mean to treat you with kindness. Nay, we must positively be on terms of friendship—I make it a point. After all, what is rank? what are riches? How vapid their charms, compared with the heartfelt joys of truth and virtue! O, Lady Gwyn, O, my respected aunt; I conjure you by our common ties of blood, by your brother, who was my father, spurn the perilous toy, fortune, and retire in time, and without exposing your lost lord, into the peaceful bosom of obscurity!'
'Conduct this wretch out of the house,' said her ladyship to the servant who had entered. 'She wants to extort money from me, I believe.'
'A moment more,' cried I. 'Where is old Eftsoones? Where is that worthy character?'
'I know no such person,' said she. 'Begone, impostor!'
At the word impostor, I smiled; drew aside my ringlets with one hand, and pointed to my inestimable mole with the other.
'Am I an impostor now?' cried I. 'But learn, unfortunate woman, that I have a certain parchment too.'——
'And a great deal of insolence too,' said she.