This fair creature was drest in a plain suit of minunet that had seen better days, and a straw hat tied with ribbons over a cap of thread lace. But her eyes! large, black, and languishing, they would have recalled to me those verses addrest to the daughter of Sultan Achmet,--
Your eyes are black and lovely,
But wild and disdainful as those of a stag,
but for the fall of lashes that hid their soft fire; her hair raven-black, a bloom I never saw equalled in this country, and her lips a veritable scarlet and shaped for every sweetness.
Thinks I--'t is well the Duke of Wharton and his club for gallantry can't see this paragon, else--but I leave the rest to your discretion, for your Ladyship knows "Sophia" as I call him, as well as I. However, the agreeablest girl in the world came forward and dropt a curtsey, with her eyes on the ground, and offered my ring, excusing herself on the scruple that she must needs give it into my own hand--and all this in a voice like music.
I leave you to guess if I was pleased, for the ring was on my mother's hand when she died, and 'twas so prettily tendered, too.
"Well, child, I thank you for your pains," says I "and will, of course, be answerable for the reward, but give me leave to add that, if I can serve you in any other manner, 'tis not my custom to leave service forgot; if I am not mistook, your mind is not as free from care as a well-wisher could like to see it."
Indeed, there was an air of melancholy about her which moved me prodigiously, and seeing Pratt flouncing and bustling in such a manner as denoted her curiosity and jealousy, I dismist her to the house. She can't endure a face that eclipses her own curds-and-whey skin, and lookt upon my little thread-satin beauty with a true court malice. I was, however, really desirous myself to know what had brought so much beauty to misfortune.
"Madam," says she, "my story is so common that it needs not detain your ear. My father was a rich Turkey merchant, and I wanted for nothing that money could buy. But he was bit by some scheme for making more, three years since; a scheme he compared--alas, too late!--to the South Sea Bubble itself. And in this he lost all, and I had the pious duty to support him by my needleworks. However, he sunk under his miseries into a melancholy that deprived him of life two years since. I nursed him to his last sigh and then, desiring to lead a life of virtue, I entered the family of Mrs Lamb, the Levant merchant's lady and a cousin of my father, to care her children. She carried them down here for an airing, and walking with the little misses yesterday, I found this ring and have the happiness to restore it."
She spoke with a propriety I can't describe, and curtseyed to retire. Indeed, my dear Lady D----n, you had yourself been seduced into the step I next took, though how far 'twas prudent, I leave you to judge, allowing the uneasiness beauty causes, go where it will.
"Child," says I, "I thank you, and as for the reward--"