“I remember,” replied Miss Willing, feeling in her reticule for her purse. Sarah had carried certain delicate missives in the country that Miss Willing would now rather have forgotten, how thankful she was that the creature had not introduced herself when her fat friend was in the coach. “What are you doing now?” asked Miss Willing, jingling up the money at one end of the purse to distinguish between the gold and the silver.
Sarey explained that being now out of place (she had been recently dismissed from a cheesemonger’s at Lutterworth for stealing a copper coal-scoop, a pound of whitening, and a pair of gold spectacles, for which a donkey-travelling general merchant had given her seven and sixpence), the guard of the coach, who was her great-uncle, had given her a lift up to town to try what she could do there again; and Miss Willing’s quick apprehension seeing that there was some use to be made of such a sharp-witted thing, having selected a half-sovereign out of her purse, thus addressed her:
“Well, Sarah, I’m glad to see you again. You are very much improved, and will be very good-looking. There’s half a sovereign for you,” handing it to her, “and if you’ll come to me at six o’clock to-morrow evening in Grosvenor Square, I dare say I shall be able to look out some things that may be useful to you.”
“Thanke, mum; thanke!” exclaimed Sarey, delighted at the idea. “I’ll be with you, you may depend.”
“You know Big Ben,” continued Miss Willing, “who was my lord’s own man; he’s hall-porter now, ring and tell him you come for me, and he’ll let you in at the door.”
“Certainly, mum, certainly,” assented Pheasant-feathers, thinking how much more magnificent that would be than sneaking down the area.
And the coach having now reached the Green Man, Miss Willing alighted and took a coach to Grosvenor Square, leaving Miss Grimes to pursue its peregrinations to the end of its journey.
And Billy Pringle having, with the aid of the “pollis,” appeased the basket-woman’s wrath, was presently ensconced in his beautiful house in Doughty Street.
So, tinkle, tinkle, tinkle,—down goes the curtain on this somewhat long chapter.