But, oh, horror! a scream was heard from Miss Binx, who was seen scuttling at double-quick time towards the school-house. Her young man had bolted completely; and close at the side of the lovely though imprudent couple, stood the angry—and justly angry—Miss Zela Pidge!
"Oh, Ferdinand," said she, "is it thus you deceive me? Did I bring you to Bulgaria House for this?—did I give you money to buy clothes for this, that you should go by false names, and make love to that saucy, slammerkin, sentimental Miss Grampus? Ferdinand, Ferdinand," cried she, "is this true,—can I credit my eyes?"
"D—your eyes!" said the signor angrily as he darted at her a withering look, and retired down the street. His curses might be heard long after he had passed. He never appeared more at Bulgaria House, for he received his dismissal the next day.
That night all the front windows of the Miss Pidges' seminary were smashed to shivers. * * *
On the following Thursday two places were taken in the coach to town. On the back seat sate the usher, on the front the wasted and miserable Adeliza Grampus.* * *
CHAPTER II.
But the matter did not end here. Miss Grampus's departure elicited from her a disclosure of several circumstances which, we must say, in no degree increased the reputation of Miss Zela Pidge. The discoveries which she made were so awkward, the tale of crime and licentiousness revealed by her so deeply injurious to the character of the establishment, that the pupils emigrated from it in scores. Miss Binx retired to her friends at Wandsworth, Miss Jacobs to her relations in Houndsditch, and other young ladies not mentioned in this history to other and more moral schools; so that absolutely, at the end of a single half year, such had been the scandal of the story, the Misses Pidge were left with only two pupils,—Miss Dibble, the articled young lady, and Miss Bole, the grocer's daughter, who came in exchange for tea, candles, and other requisites supplied to the establishment by her father.
"I knew it, I knew it!" cried Zela passionately, as she trod the echoing and melancholy school-room; "he told me that none ever prospered who loved him,—that every flower was blighted upon which he shone! Ferdinand, Ferdinand! you have caused ruin there" (pointing to the empty cupboards and forms); "but what is that to the blacker ruin here!" and the poor creature slapped her heart, and the big tears rolled down her chin, and so into her tucker.
A very, very few weeks after this, the plate of Bulgaria House was removed for ever. That mansion is now designated "Moscow Hall, by Mr. Swishtail and assistants:"—the bankrupt and fugitive Misses Pidge have fled, Heaven knows whither! for the steamers to Boulogne cost more than five shillings in those days.
Alderman Grampus, as may be imagined, did not receive his daughter with any extraordinary degree of courtesy. "He was as grumpy," Mrs. G. remarked, "on the occasion as a sow with the measles."—But had he not reason? A lovely daughter who had neglected her education, forgotten her morals for the second time, and fallen almost a prey to villains! Miss Grampus for some months was kept in close confinement, nor ever suffered to stir, except occasionally to Bunhill-row for air, and to church for devotion. Still, though she knew him to be false,—though she knew that under a different, perhaps a prettier name, he had offered the same vows to another,—she could not but think of Roderick.