"Yes; and that she was always glad to drink tea with, ma'am, when asked, you know," said Mrs. Puffit.
"Well, ma'am," pursued Mrs. Bertrand, "here she had the impudence to pretend not to know them. She takes up her glass--my Lady Di. herself couldn't have done it better, and squeezes up her ugly face this way, pretending to be near-sighted, though she can see as well as you or I can."
"Such airs! _she_ near-sighted!" said Mrs. Puffit: "what will the world come to!"
"Oh, I wish her pride may have a fall," resumed the provoked milliner, as soon as she had breath. "I dare to say now she wouldn't know her own relations if she was to meet them; I'd lay any wager she would not vouchsafe a curtsy to that good old John Barker, the friend of her father, you know, who gave up to this Miss Burrage I don't know how many hundreds of pounds, that were due to him, or else miss wouldn't have had a farthing in the world; yet now, I'll be bound, she'd forget this as well as St. Augustin's Back, and wouldn't know John Barker from Abraham; and I don't doubt that she'd pull out her glass at her aunt Dinah, because she is a cheesemonger's widow."
"Oh no," said Mrs. Bertrand, "she couldn't have the baseness to be near-sighted to good Dinah Plait, that bred her up, and was all in all to her."
Just as Mrs. Bertrand finished speaking, into the fruit-shop walked the very persons of whom she had been talking--Dinah Plait and Mr. Barker.
"Mrs. Dinah Plait, I declare!" exclaimed Mrs. Bertrand.
"I never was so glad to see you, Mrs. Plait and Mr. Barker, in all my days," said Mrs. Puffit.
"Why you should be so particularly glad to see me, Mrs. Puffit, I don't know," said Mr. Barker, laughing; "but I'm not surprised Dinah Plait should be a welcome guest wherever she goes, especially with a purse full of guineas in her hand."
"Friend Bertrand," said Dinah Plait, producing a purse which she held under her cloak, "I am come to restore this purse to its rightful owner: after a great deal of trouble, John Barker (who never thinks it a trouble to do good) hath traced her to your house."
"There is a young lady here, to be sure," said Mrs. Bertrand, "but you can't see her just at present, for she is talking on _petticlar_ business with my Lady Frances Somerset above stairs."