Page:The Wanderer (1814 Volume 2).pdf/133

 Ellis, looking away from him, pronounced a repulsive negative.

An elderly gentleman, who was walking up and down the room, now bowed to her. Not knowing him, she let his salutation pass apparently disregarded; when, some of her cakes accidentally falling from the form, he eagerly picked them up, saying, as he grasped them in his hand, "Faith, Madam, you had better have eaten them at once. You had, faith! Few things are mended by delay. We are all at our best at first. These cakes are no more improved by being mottled with the dirt of the floor, than a pretty woman is by being marked with the small pox. I know nothing that i'n't the worse for a put-off unless it be a quarrel."

Ellis, then, through his voice and language, discovered her fellow voyager, Mr. Riley; though a considerable change in his appearance, from his travelling garb, had prevented a more immediate recollection.