The next house at which Angelina stopped, to search for her amiable Araminta, was at Mrs. Porett's academy for young ladies.
"Yes, ma'am, Miss Hodges is here--Pray walk into this room, and you shall see the young lady immediately." Angelina burst into the room instantly, exclaiming--
"Oh, my Araminta! have I found you at last?"
She stopped short, a little confounded at finding herself in a large room full of young ladies, who were dancing reels, and who all stood still at one and the same instant, and fixed their eyes upon her, struck with astonishment at her theatrical entrée and exclamation.
"Miss Hodges!" said Mrs. Porett--and a little girl of seven years old came forward:--"Here, ma'am," said Mrs. Porett to Angelina, "here is Miss Hodges."
"Not _my_ Miss Hodges! not my Araminta! alas!"
"No, ma'am," said the little girl; "I am only Letty Hodges."
Several of her companions now began to titter.
"These girls," said Angelina to herself, "take me for a fool;" and, turning to Mrs. Porett, she apologized for the trouble she had given, in language as little romantic as she could condescend to use.
"Tid you bid me, miss, wait in the coach, or the passage?" cried Betty Williams, forcing her way in at the door, so as almost to push down the dancing-master, who stood with his back to it. Betty stared round, and dropped curtsy after curtsy, whilst the young ladies laughed and whispered, and whispered and laughed; and the words, odd--vulgar--strange--who is she?--what is she?--reached Miss Warwick.
"This Welsh girl," thought she, "is my torment. Wherever I go she makes me share the ridicule of her folly."
Clara Hope, one of the young ladies, saw and pitied Angelina's confusion.
"Gif over, an ye have any gude nature--gif over your whispering and laughing," said Clara to her companions: "ken ye not ye make her so bashful, she'd fain hide her face wi' her twa hands."
But it was in vain that the good-natured Clara Hope remonstrated: her companions could not forbear tittering, as Betty Williams, upon Miss Warwick's laying the blame of the mistake on her, replied in a strong Welsh accent--"I will swear almost the name was Porett or Plait, where our Miss Hodges tid always lodge in Pristol. Porett, or Plait, or Puffit, or some of her names that pekin with a p and ent with at."