“That young man may be rendered pliant and docile according to our will,” said the old woman at length.
“He is beyond all doubt the one whom the gipsy alluded to in such glowing colours,” observed Perdita, with a voluptuous languor in the eyes, a flushing of the cheeks, and a slow but deep heaving of the bosom.
“And he has something on his mind—that is clear!” added the old woman.
“Which we will soon make him divulge to us,” said Perdita. “But how do you intend to proceed in order to form his acquaintance?”
“Oh! nothing is more easy!” returned her mother. “In the first place we must take handsome lodgings. I know of a nice, quiet, retired street in the neighbourhood. Come along, Perdita—we must not waste valuable time.”
The two women repaired direct to Suffolk Street, Pall Mall East; and in the window of a house of handsome appearance they saw a card announcing furnished apartments to be let. The lodgings were speedily inspected and hired, the prepayment of a month’s rent immediately ensuring the good opinion of the landlady and rendering references unnecessary.
Back to the coffee-house in the vicinity of Covent Garden did the wanderers hasten; and in a few minutes all their packages and new purchases were transported to a hackney coach, which was fetched from the nearest stand. The coffee-house keeper was liberally rewarded, and a handsome fee was bestowed upon the driver of the vehicle to induce him to state, in case of being questioned in Suffolk Street, that he had brought the ladies from some respectable hotel.
All these matters being arranged, the mother and daughter proceeded in the hackney-coach to their new lodgings, where they at once took up their quarters under the imposing name of Mrs. and Miss Fitzhardinge.
Had the worthy butcher who a few hours previously took pity on the two ragged, sinking mendicants, and sustained their strength and courage by means of hot brandy-and-water at the Elephant and Castle,—had he now beheld Mrs. and Miss Fitzhardinge sitting down, elegantly attired, at a well spread dinner-table, and at the fashionable time of six in the evening,—he would not for an instant have supposed that the way-worn beggars of the morning’s adventure and the ladies of Suffolk Street, Pall Mall, were identical: or if, by chance, he should have recognised Perdita’s handsome countenance, he would have thought that the delusions of enchantment had been practised upon him or her.
And now we have prepared the way, with due prefatory explanation, for one of the most striking and remarkable episodes in this narrative—an episode showing how Perdita’s arts and Perdita’s beauty accomplished aims which women of less enterprise than herself and her mother would have deemed impossible.