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"Without a moment's hesitation!"
"Would you, indeed? And from what motive?"
Again Ellis could scarcely keep her countenance, at a question so unexpected, while she answered, "From the customs, Sir, of the world, I have been brought up to avoid all obligations with strangers."
"How so? I don't at all see that. Have you not an obligation to that linen draper, and hosier, and I don't know who, there, upon your chimney-piece, if you take their things, and don't pay for them?"
Yet more struck with the sense of unbiassed equity manifested by this question, than by the simplicity shewn by that which had preceded it, Ellis felt her face suffused with shame, as she replied, "I blush to have incurred such a reprimand; but I hope to convince you, by the exertions which I shall not a moment delay making, how little it is my intention to practise any such in-
