Angelina had scarcely time to believe or disbelieve what she heard, before the maid returned, with “Mam, Mizz Hodges haz hur best love to you, mizz—and please to walk up—There be two steps; please to have a care, or you’ll break your neck.”
Before we introduce Angelina to her “unknown friend,” we must relate the conversation which was actually passing between the amiable Araminta and her Orlando, whilst Miss Warwick was waiting in the fruit shop. Our readers will be so good as to picture to themselves a woman, with a face and figure which seemed to have been intended for a man, with a voice and gesture capable of setting even man, “imperial man,” at defiance—such was Araminta. She was, at this time, sitting cross-legged in an arm-chair at a tea-table, on which, beside the tea equipage, was a medley of things of which no prudent tongue or pen would undertake to give a correct inventory. At the feet of this fair lady, kneeling on one knee, was a thin, subdued, simple-looking quaker, of the name of Nathaniel Gazabo.
“But now, Natty,” said Miss Hodges, in a voice more masculine than her looks, “you understand the conditions—If I give you my hand, and make you my husband, it is upon condition that you never contradict any of my opinions: do you promise me that?”
“Yea, verily,” replied Nat.
“And you promise to leave me entirely at liberty to act, as well as to think, in all things as my own independent understanding shall suggest?”
“Yea, verily,” was the man’s response.
“And you will be guided by me in all things?”
“Yea, verily.”
“And you will love and admire me all your life, as much as you do now?”
“Yea, verily.”