Nat Gazabo re-entered with the tea-kettle--
"Here's _boiling_ water, and we'll have fresh tea in a trice--the young lady's over-tired, seemingly--Here's a chair, miss, here's a chair," cried Nat. Miss Warwick _sunk_ upon the chair: Miss Hodges seated herself beside her, continuing to address her in a theatrical tone.
"This moment is bliss unutterable! my kind, my noble-minded Angelina, thus to leave all your friends for your Araminta!"--Suddenly changing her voice--"Set the tea-kettle, Nat!"
"Who is this Nat, I wonder?" thought Miss Warwick.
"Well, and tell me," said Miss Hodges, whose attention was awkwardly divided between the ceremonies of making tea and making speeches--"and tell me, my Angelina--That's water enough, Nat--and tell me, my Angelina, how did you find me out?"
"With some difficulty, indeed, _my Araminta_." Miss Warwick could hardly pronounce the words.
"So kind, so noble-minded," continued Miss Hodges--"and did you receive my last letter--three sheets?--And how did you contrive--Stoop the kettle, _do_, Nat."
"Oh, this odious Nat! how I wish she would send him away!" thought Miss Warwick.
"And tell me, my Araminta--my Angelina I mean--how did you contrive your elopement--and how did you escape from the eye of your aristocratic Argus--how did you escape from all your unfeeling persecutors?--Tell me, tell me all your adventures, my Angelina!--Butter the toast, Nat," said Miss Hodges who was cutting bread and butter, which she did not do with the celebrated grace of Charlotte, in the Sorrows of Werter.
"I'll tell you all, my Araminta," whispered Miss Warwick, "when we are by ourselves."
"Oh, never mind Nat," whispered Miss Hodges.
"Couldn't you tell him," rejoined Miss Warwick, "that he need not wait any longer?"
"_Wait_, my dear! why, what do you take him for?"
"Why, is not he your footman?" whispered Angelina.
"My footman!--Nat!" exclaimed Miss Hodges, bursting out a laughing, "my Angelina took you for my footman."
"Good heavens! what is he?" said Angelina, in a low voice.
"Verily," said Nat Gazabo, with a sort of bashful simple laugh, "verily, I am the humblest of her servants."
"And does my Angelina--spare my delicacy," said Miss Hodges--"does my Angelina not remember, in any of my long letters, the name of--Orlando!--There he stands."