edeeming her from the Turk, etc., with which Moll would 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 these
occasions. She would lard her conversation with those scraps of Italian
she learnt from me, and sometimes, affecting to have forgot her own
tongue, she would stumble at a word, and turning to Don Sanchez, ask him
the English of some Moorish phrase. Then one day, there being quite a
dozen visitors in her state room, she brings down her Moorish dress and
those baubles given her by friends at Elche, to show the ladies, much to
the general astonishment and wonder; then, being prayed to dress herself
in these clothes, she with some hesitation of modesty consents, and
after a short absence from the room returns in this costume, looking
lovelier than ever I had be