 great sweetness, assured her that she did not desire to be dismissed in consequence of any discontent, but that the necessity of her affairs obliged her to return immediately to town.
"Your affairs!" said miss Cordwain, with a haughty sneer;
I vow it is mighty pretty to hear servants talk of their affairs, as if they really had any concerns of more consequence than the duty they owe their principals. I wonder you don't tell me you have half a dozen engagements in town,
pursued she, laughing aloud;
such a speech would become you mightily: but prithee, go, creature; pack up your rags in a sheet of brown paper, and take yourself away. I suppose you have found out a new method of living, less mortifying to your pride of beggarly gentility tha•

waiting upon a woman of fortune; and I doubt not but you will be shortly seen flaunting it in publick places with a flimsy sack, a painted face, and all the trappings of your trade.

To this coarse abuse Henrietta listened in silence, beholding her imperious mistress all the time with such a calm, but steady eye, as called up a blush in those cheeks which had been before overspread with a livid paleness.
Not that she felt any remorse for the reproaches she had uttered, or was ashamed of her indecent transports, but Henrietta's soft composure, the dignity of her silence, and the energetick expression in her eyes, struck a kind of awe into her mean-soul'd adversary; and, inly raging at the inferiority she was conscious of, she commanded her to be gone from her presence.
Henrietta instantly obeyed, and, meeting the countess's woman as she went out of the room, she begged her to send a servant to the nearest inn to hire a post-chaise for her, being resolved to return to London that very day.
This well-bred Abigail expressed great concern that she was so soon to lose the honour of her company; and asked, with an appearance of anxiety, if she was not to return again?

Henrietta replied in the negative, at which the other seemed wonderfully surprised, though she was not ignorant of all that had passed between Henrietta and her lady; for, hearing miss Cordwain's voice very loud, she had applied her ear to the key-hole, and needed no further information.
Our fair heroine having evaded the artful questions of this prying woman, and discouraged her reflections on her own lady, whom, in her general invective against the pride and caprice of mistresses, she did not
