“My grandmother’s as deaf as a post, miss—don’t mind her; she can’t tell Inglis well, put I can:—who would you pe pleased to have?”
“In plain English, then—the lady who lives in this cottage.”
“Our Miss Hodges?”
This odious name of Hodges provoked Angelina, who was so used to call her friend Araminta, that she had almost forgotten her real name.
“Oh, miss,” continued Betty Williams, “Miss Hodges has gone to Pristol for a few days.”
“Gone! how unlucky! my Araminta gone!”
“Put Miss Hodges will pe pack on Tuesday—Miss Hodges did not expect hur till Thursday—put her ped is very well aired—pe pleased to walk in, and light hur a candle, and get hur a nightcap.”
“Heigho! must I sleep again without seeing my Araminta!—Well, but I shall sleep in a cottage for the first time in my life—
“‘The swallow twittering from the straw-built shed.’”
At this moment, Angelina, forgetting to stoop, hit herself a violent blow as she was entering Angelina Bower—the roof of which, indeed, “was too low for so lofty a head.”—A headache came on, which kept her awake the greatest part of the night. In the morning she set about to explore the cottage; it was nothing like the species of elegant retirement, of which she had drawn such a charming picture in her imagination. It consisted of three small bedchambers, which were more like what she had been used to call closets; a parlour, the walls of which were, in many places, stained with damp; and a kitchen which smoked. The scanty, moth-eaten furniture of the rooms was very different from the luxury and elegance to which Angelina had been accustomed in the apartments of Lady Diana Chillingworth. Coarse and ill-dressed was the food which Betty Williams with great bustle and awkwardness served up to her guest; but Angelina was no epicure. The first dinner which she ate on wooden trenchers delighted her; the second, third, fourth, and fifth, appeared less and less delectable; so that by the time she had boarded one week at her cottage, she was completely convinced that