beguile away any tedious half-hour, for the mere amusement of creating Mrs. Butterby's wonder and surprise,—as one will tell stories of fairies to children,—this good woman repeated with many additions of her own concerning ourselves, which, to reflect credit on herself, were all to our advantage. This was the more fitting, because the news spreading that the lost heiress had returned to Hurst Court excited curiosity far and wide, and it was not long before families in the surrounding seats, who had known Sir R. Godwin in bygone times, called to see his daughter. And here Moll's wit was taxed to the utmost, for those who had known Judith Godwin as an infant expected that she should remember some incident stored in their recollection; but she was ever equal to the occasion, feigning a pretty doubting innocence at first, then suddenly asking this lady if she had not worn a cherry dress with a beautiful stomacher at the time, or that gentleman if he had not given her a gold piece for a token, and it generally happened these shrewd shafts hit their mark: the lady, though she might have forgotten her gown, remembering she had a very becoming stomacher; the gentleman believing that he did give her a lucky penny, and so forth, from very vanity. Then Moll's lofty carriage and her beauty would remind them of their dear lost friend, Mrs. Godwin, in the heyday of her youth, and all agreed in admiring her beyond anything. And though Moll, from her lack of knowledge, made many slips, and would now and then say things uncustomary to women of breeding, yet these were easily attributed to her living so long in a barbarous country, and were as readily glanced over. Indeed, nothing could surpass Moll's artificial conduct on
