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—look to your heart! for I won't lose a moment in becoming black, patched, and pennyless!"
She flew with this anecdote to the breakfast parlour; while the stranger, yet more rapidly, flew from the inn to the sea-side, where she carefully retraced the ground that she had passed; but all examination was vain, and she returned with an appearance of increased dismay.
Meeting Harleigh at the door, his expression of concern somewhat calmed her distress, and she conjured him to plead with one of the ladies, to have the charity to convey her to London, and thence to help her on to Brighthelmstone. "I have no means," she cried, "now, to proceed unaided; my purse, I imagine, dropt into the sea, when, so unguardedly! in the dark, I cast there—" She stopt, looked confused, and bent her eyes upon the ground.
"To Brighthelmstone?" repeated Harleigh; "some of these ladies reside not nine miles from that town, I will see what can be done."
