She waited a few instants, in expectation that he would either put it down, or make some excuse for his curiosity; but he seemed to think of nothing less. He sorted and counted the bills, and began casting them up.

'Have you then the goodness, Sir,' said Ellis, 'to prepare yourself for acquainting Miss Arbe with the state of my affairs?'

He started again at this question, and looked a little scared; but, after a minute's perplexity, he suddenly arose, and hastily refolding, and placing them upon the chimney-piece, said, with a good deal of confusion, 'I beg your pardon a thousand times! I don't well know how this happened; but the chimney-piece looks so like my own,--and the fire was so comfortable,--that I suppose I thought I was at home, and took that parcel for one that the servant had put there for me. And I was wondering to myself when I had ordered all those linens, and muslins, and the like: I could not recollect one article of them.'

He then, after again begging her pardon, took leave.

While Ellis was ruminating whether this strange conduct were the effect of absence, oddity, or curiosity, he abruptly returned, and said, 'I protest I was going without my errand, at last! Did you bid me tell my cousin that all those bills were paid?'

'All paid?--alas, no!--not one of them!'

'And why not? You should always pay your bills, my dear.'

Ellis looked at him in much perplexity, to see whether this were uttered as a sneer, or as a remonstrance; but soon perceived, by the earnestness of his countenance, that it was the latter; and then, with a sigh, answered, 'You are undoubtedly right, Sir! I am the first to condemn all that appears against me! But I made my late attempt with a persuasion that I was as secure of repaying others, as of serving myself. I would not, else, have run any risk, where I should not have been the sole sufferer.'

'But what,' said he, staring, and shutting the door, and not seeming to comprehend her, 'what is the reason that you can't pay your bills?'

'A very simple reason, Sir--I have not the power!'

'Not the power?--what, are you very poor, then?'

Ellis could not forbear smiling, but seeing him put his hand in his pocket, hastened to answer, 'Yes, Sir,--but very proud, too! I am sometimes, therefore, involved in the double distress, of being obliged to refuse the very a.s.sistance I require.'

'But you would not refuse mine!'

'Without a moment's hesitation!'

'Would you, indeed? And from what motive?'

Again Ellis could scarcely keep her countenance, at a question so unexpected, while she answered, 'From the customs, Sir, of the world, I have been brought up to avoid all obligations with strangers.'

'How so? I don't at all see that. Have you not an obligation to that linen draper, and hosier, and I don't know who, there, upon your chimney-piece, if you take their things, and don't pay for them?'

Yet more struck with the sense of unbia.s.sed equity manifested by this question, than by the simplicity shewn by that which had preceded it, Ellis felt her face suffused with shame, as she replied, 'I blush to have incurred such a reprimand; but I hope to convince you, by the exertions which I shall not a moment delay making, how little it is my intention to practise any such injustice; and how wide it would be from my approbation.'

She sat down, sensibly affected by the necessity of uttering this vindication.

'Well, then,' said he, without observing her distress, 'won't it be more honest to run in debt with an old bachelor, who has n.o.body but himself to take care of, than with a set of poor people who, perhaps, have got their houses full of children?'

The word honest, and the impossibility of disproving a charge of injuring those by whom she had been served, so powerfully shocked her feelings in arraigning her principles, that she could frame no answer.

Conceiving her silence to be a.s.sent, he returned to the chimney-piece, and, taking the little packet of bills, prepared to put it into his pocket-book; but, hastily, then, rising, she entreated him to restore it without delay.

Her manner was so earnest that he did not dare contest her will, though he looked nearly as angry as he was sorry. 'I meant,' he said, 'to have given you the greatest pleasure in the world; that was what I meant. I thought your debts made you so unhappy, that you would love me all your life for getting them off your hands. I loved a person so myself, who paid for some tops for me, when I was a boy, that I had bought for some of my playmates; without recollecting that I had no money to pay for them. However, I beg your pardon for my blunder, if you like your debts better.'

He now bowed to her, with an air of concern, and, wishing her health and happiness, retreated; but left her door wide open; and she heard him say to the milliners, 'My dears, I've made a great mistake: I wanted to set that pretty lady's heart at rest, by paying her bills; but she says she had rather owe them; though she did not mention her reason. So I hope the poor people are in no great hurry. However, whether they be or not, don't let them torment her for the money, for she says she has none. So 'twould only be plaguing her for nothing. And I should be sorry for her, for she looks as if she were very smart, besides being so pretty.'

CHAPTER XXIX

Ellis, for some minutes, hardly knew whether to be most provoked or diverted by this singular visit. But all that approached to amus.e.m.e.nt was short lived. The most distant apprehension that her probity could be arraigned, was shocking; and she determined to dedicate the evening to calculating all that she had either to pay or to receive; and sooner to leave herself dest.i.tute of every means of support, but such as should arise from day to day, than hazard incurring any suspicion injurious to her integrity.

These estimates, which were easily drawn up, afforded her, at once, a view of her ability to satisfy her creditors, and of the helpless poverty in which she must then remain herself: her courage, nevertheless, rose higher, from the conviction that her honour would be cleared.

She was thus employed, when, late in the evening, Miss Arbe, full dressed, and holding her watch in her hand, ran up stairs. 'I have but a quarter of an hour,' she cried, 'to stay, so don't let us lose a moment.

I am just come from dining at Lady Kendover's, and I am going to an a.s.sembly at the Sycamore's. But I thought I would just steal a few minutes for our dear little lyre. You can give me your answer, you know, as I am going down stairs. Come, quick, my dear Miss Ellis!--'Tis such a delight to try our music together!'

'My answer, Madam?' cried Ellis, surprised: 'I had hoped for yours! and, as you will, probably, meet all the ladies to whom you have had the goodness to mention me, at Miss Sycamore's, I entreat--'

'I am so dreadfully hurried,' cried she, unrolling her music, 'that I can't say a word of all that now. But we'll arrange it, and you can tell me how you like our plan, you know, as I am putting up my music, and going; but we can't possibly play the harp while I am drawing on my gloves, and scampering down stairs.'

This logic, which she felt to be irrefutable, she uttered with the most perfect self-complacency, while spreading her music, and placing herself at the harp; but once there, she would neither say nor hear another word; and it was equally in vain that Ellis desired an explanation of the plan to which she alluded, or an answer to the pet.i.tion which she had written herself. Miss Arbe could listen to no sounds but those produced by her own fingers; and could balance no interests, but those upon which she was speculating, of the advantages which she should herself reap from these continual, though unacknowledged lessons. And Ellis found all her painful difficulties, how to extricate herself from the distresses of penury, the horrour of creditors, and the fears of want, treated but as minor considerations, when put in compet.i.tion with the importance of Miss Arbe's most trivial, and even stolen improvement.

She saw, however, no redress; displeasure was unnoticed, distaste was unheeded; and she had no choice but to put aside every feeling, and give her usual instructions; or to turn a professed protectress into a dangerous and resentful enemy.

She sat down, therefore, to her business.

The quarter of an hour was scarcely pa.s.sed, before Miss Arbe started up to be gone; and, giving her music to Ellis to fold, while she drew on her gloves, cried, 'Well, you can tell me, now, what I must say to Lady Kendover. I hope you like my scheme?'

Ellis protested herself utterly ignorant what scheme she meant.

'Bless me,' she cried, 'did not my cousin tell you what I've been doing for you? I've quite slaved in your service, I can a.s.sure you. I never made such exertions in my life. Every body had agreed to give you up.

It's really shocking to see how people are governed by their prejudices!

But I brought them all round; for, after Lady Aurora's letter, they none of them could tell what to resolve upon, till I gave them my advice.

That, indeed, is no unusual thing to happen to me. So few people know what they had best do!'

This self-eulogium having elated her spirits, her haste to depart sufficiently slackened, to give her time to make a farther demand, whether her cousin had executed her commission.

Ellis knew not even that he had had any to execute.

'Well,' she cried, 'that old soul grows more provoking every day! I have resolved a thousand times never to trust him again; only he is always at hand, and that's so convenient, one does not know how to resist making use of him. But he really torments me more than any thing existing. If he had literally no sense, one should not be so angry; but, when it's possible to make him listen, he understands what one says well enough: and sometimes, which you will scarcely believe, he'll suddenly utter something so keen and so neat, that you'd suppose him, all at once, metamorphosed into a wit. But the fact is, he is so tiresomely absent, that he never knows what he does, nor hears what one says. At breakfast, he asks whether there is nothing more coming for dinner; at dinner, he bids his servant get ready his night-cap and slippers, because he shall eat no supper; if any body applies to him for a pinch of snuff, he brings them an arm chair; if they ask him how he does, he fetches his hat and cane, b.u.t.tons his great coat up to his chin, and says he is ready to attend them; if they enquire what it is o'clock, he thanks them for their kindness, and runs over a list of all his aches and pains; and the moment any body enters the room, the first word he commonly says to them is Good-bye!'

Ellis earnestly begged to know what was meant by the letter of Lady Aurora.

Miss Arbe again declared herself too much hurried to stay; and spent more time in censuring Mr Giles, for not having spared her such a loss of it, than would have been required for even a minute recital of the business which he had forgotten. Ellis, however, at length learnt, that Miss Arbe had had the address to hit upon a plan which conciliated all interests, and to which she had prevailed upon Lady Kendover to consent.

'Her la'ship's name,' she continued, 'with my extensive influence, will be quite enough to obtain that of every body else worth having at Brighthelmstone. And she was vastly kind, indeed; for though she did it, she said, with the extremest repugnance, which, to be sure, is natural enough, not being able to imagine who or what she serves; yet, in consideration of your being patronized by me, she would not refuse to give you her countenance once more. Nothing in the world could be kinder. You must go immediately to thank her.'

'Unhappily, Madam,' answered Ellis, colouring, 'I have too many obligations of my own unrepaid, to have the presumption to suppose I can a.s.sist in the acknowledgments of others: and this plan, whatever it may be, has so evidently received the sanction of Lady Kendover solely to oblige Miss Arbe, that it would be folly, if not impertinence, on my part, to claim the honour of offering her ladyship my thanks.'

Miss Arbe, whose watch was always in her hand, when her harp was not, had no time to mark this discrimination; she went on, therefore, rapidly, with her communication. 'Lady Kendover,' she said, 'had a.s.serted, that if Miss Ellis had been celebrated in any public line of life, there would be less difficulty about employing her; but as she had only been seen or noticed in private families, it was necessary to be much more particular as to her connexions and conduct; because, in that case, she must, of course, be received upon a more friendly footing; and with a consideration and confidence by no means necessary for a public artist. If, therefore, all were not clear and satisfactory--'

Ellis, with mingled spirit and dignity, here interrupted her: 'Spare me, Madam, this preamble, for both our sakes! for though the pain it causes is only mine, the useless trouble,--pardon me!--will be yours. I do not desire--I could not even consent to enter any house, where to receive me would be deemed a disgrace.'

'O, but you have not heard my plan! You don't know how well it has all been settled. The harp-professor now here, a proud, conceited old c.o.xcomb, full of the most abominable airs, but a divine performer, wants to obtrude his daughter upon us, in your place; though she has got so cracked a voice, that she gives one the head-ache by her squeaks. Well, to make it his interest not to be your enemy, I have prevailed with Lady Kendover to desire him to take you in for one of his band, either to play or sing, at the great concert-room.'