Page:The Wanderer (1814 Volume 2).pdf/75

 Howel wants you to do; for I am sure I don't know who you will get to take you, if you do. I have known pretty many young women in that capacity, and not one among them ever had such a thought. How should they? People do not pay them for that."

"I only hope," said Miss Arbe, "that whoever has the good fortune to obtain the society of Miss Ellis, will have a taste for music. 'Twill be a thousand shames if her fine talents should be thrown away."

Ellis, as she suspected not her design, was much surprised by this return to fine speeches. Still, however, she sustained her own reserve, for the difficulty of devising to what the change might be owing, made her cast it upon mere caprice. To the enquiries, also, of Miss Bydel, she was equally immoveable, as they evidently sprang from coarse and general curiosity.

This distance, however, was not successful, either in stopping the questions of Miss