“My amiable Araminta!—My unknown friend!”
“My Angelina!—My charming Angelina!” cried Miss Hodges.
Miss Hodges was not the sort of person our heroine expected to see;—and to conceal the panic, with which the first sight of her unknown friend struck her disappointed imagination, she turned back to listen to the apologies which Nat Gazabo was pouring forth about his awkwardness and the tea-kettle.
“Turn, Angelina, ever dear!” cried Miss Hodges, with the tone and action of a bad actress who is rehearsing an embrace—“Turn, Angelina, ever dear!—thus, thus let us meet, to part no more.”
“But her voice is so loud,” said Angelina to herself, “and her looks so vulgar, and there is such a smell of brandy!—How unlike the elegant delicacy I had expected in my unknown friend!” Miss Warwick involuntarily shrunk from the stifling embrace.
“You are overpowered, my Angelina—lean on me,” said her Araminta.
Nat Gazabo re-entered with the tea-kettle—
“Here’s boiling water, and we’ll have fresh tea in a trice—the young lady’s over-tired, seemingly—Here’s a chair, miss, here’s a chair,” cried Nat. Miss Warwick sunk upon the chair: Miss Hodges seated herself beside her, continuing to address her in a theatrical tone.
“This moment is bliss unutterable! my kind, my noble-minded Angelina, thus to leave all your friends for your Araminta!”—Suddenly changing her voice—“Set the tea-kettle, Nat!”
“Who is this Nat, I wonder?” thought Miss Warwick.