Selina, now, ran to shake hands with her dear Ellis, expressing the warmest pleasure at her sight. Ellis as much, though not as disagreeably surprised by her notice now, as she had been by the more than neglect which had preceded it, was hesitating what judgment to form of either, when Miss Sycamore, from some distance, scornfully called out to her, 'Don't fail to stop at our house on your way back to your lodgings, Miss Ellis, to look at my harp. I believe it's out of order.'
Lady Kendover, whose invariable politeness made her peculiarly sensible of any failure of that quality in another, perceiving Ellis extremely disconcerted, by the pointed malice of this humiliating command, at the moment that she was bearing her part in superiour society, redoubled her own civilities, by attentions as marked and public as they were obliging; and, pleased by the modest gratitude with which they were received, had again restored the serenity of Ellis; when a conversation, unavoidably overheard, produced new disturbance.
Mr Riley, who had just recognized Ireton and Mrs Maple, was loud in his satisfaction at again seeing two of his fellow-voyagers; and, in his usually unceremonious manner, began discoursing upon their late dangers and escape; notwithstanding all the efforts of Mrs Maple, who knew nothing of his birth, situation in life, or fortune, to keep him at a distance.
'And pray,' cried her, 'how does Miss Nelly do? She is a prodigious clever girl; she is faith! I took to her mightily; though I did not much like that twist she had got to the wrong side of my politics. I longed prodigiously to give her a twitch back to the right. But how could you think Ma'am, of taking over such a brisk, warm, young girl as that, at the very instant when the new-fangled doctrines were beginning to ferment in every corner of France? boiling over in one half of their pates, to scald t'other half.'
Mrs Maple, however unwilling to hold a public conference with a person of whom she had never seen the pedigree, nor the rent-roll, could still less endure to let even a shadow of blame against herself pass unanswered: she therefore angrily said, that she had travelled for health, and not to trouble herself about politics.
'O, as to you, Ma'am, it's all one, at your years: but how you could fancy a skittish young girl, like that, could be put into such a hot bed of wild plants, and not shoot forth a few twigs herself, I can't make out. You might as well send her to a dance, and tell her not to wag a foot. And pray what's become of Mr Harleigh? I've no where seen his fellow. He was the most of a manly gentleman that ever fell in my walk. And your poor ailing mama, Squire Ireton? Has she got the better of her squeamish fits? She was deuced bad aboard; and not much better ashore. And that Demoiselle, the black-skinned girl, with the fine eyes and nose? Where's she, too? Have you ever heard what became of her?'
Ellis, who every moment expected this question, had prepared herself to listen to it with apparent unconcern: but Selina, tittering, and again running up to her, and pinching her arm, asked whether it were not she, that that droll man meant by the black-skinned girl?
'She was a good funny girl, faith!' continued Riley. 'I was prodigiously diverted with her. Yet we did nothing but quarrel. Though I don't know why. But I could never find out who she was. I believe the devil himself could not have made her speak.'
The continual little laughs of Selina, whom no supplications of Ellis could keep quiet, now attracted the notice of Lady Kendover; which so palpably encreased the confusion of Ellis, that the attention of her ladyship was soon transferred to herself.
'She was but an odd fish, I believe, after all,' Riley went on; 'for, one day, when I was sauntering along Oxford Street, who should I meet but the noble Admiral? the only one of our set I have seen, till this moment, since I left Dover. And when we talked over our adventures, and I asked him if he knew any thing of the Demoiselle, how do you think she had served him? She's a comical hand, faith! Only guess!'