It was the last thing of which Miss Delacour was likely to think at this instant. She was so much overjoyed, when she heard that Belinda was come by her mamma’s desire to take her home, that she would scarcely stay whilst Mrs. Dumont was tying on her straw hat, and exhorting her to let Lady Delacour know how it happened that she was “so far from fit to be seen.”
“Yes, ma’am; yes, ma’am, I’ll remember; I’ll be sure to remember,” said Helena, tripping down the steps. But just as she was getting into the carriage she stopped at the sight of the old man, and exclaimed, “Oh, good old man! I must not forget you.”
“Yes, indeed, you must, though, my dear Miss Delacour,” said Lady Boucher, pulling her into the carriage: “‘tis no time to think of good old men now.”
“But I must. Dear Miss Portman, will you speak for me? I must pay—I must settle—and I have a great deal to say.”
Miss Portman desired the old man to call in Berkley-square at Lady Delacour’s; and this satisfying all parties, they drove away.
When they arrived in Berkley-square, Marriott told them that her lady was just gone to lie down. Edward Percival’s little journal, which she had been reading, was left on the sofa, and Belinda gave it to Helena, who eagerly began to look over it.
“Thirteen pages! Oh, how good he has been to write so much for me!” said she; and she had almost finished reading it before her mother came into the room.
Lady Delacour shrunk back as her daughter ran towards her; for she recollected too well the agony she had once suffered from an embrace of Helena’s. The little girl appeared more grieved than surprised at this; and after kissing her mother’s hand, without speaking, she again looked down at the manuscript.
“Does that engross your attention so entirely, my dear,” said Lady Delacour, “that you can neither spare one word nor one look for your mother?”
“Oh, mamma! I only tried to read, because I thought you were angry with me.”