in her absence, Wright was received very graciously by the milliner, who
had lodgings to let, and who readily agreed to let them to him for a
week, as he offered half a guinea more than she could get from anybody
else. She fancied that he was deeply smitten with Miss Barton's
charms, and encouraged his passion, by pretty broad hints that it was
reciprocal. Miss Barton drank tea this evening with the milliner: Wright
was of the party, and he was made to understand that _others_ had been
excluded: "for Miss Barton," her friend observed, "was very _nice_ as to
her company."

Many dexterous efforts were made to induce Wright to lay open his heart;
for the dyer's lady had been cross-questioned as to his property in
Lincolnshire, and she being a lover of the marvellous, had indulged
herself in a little exaggeration; so that he was considered as a prize,
and Miss Barton's imagination settled the matter so rapidly, that she
had actually agreed to make the milliner a handsome present on the
wedding-day. Upon this hint, the milliner became anxious to push forward
the affair. Marvel, she observed, hung back about the sale of his
estate; and, as to Sir Plantagenet Mowbray's son, he was bound hand and
foot by his father, so could do nothing genteel: besides, honourable
matrimony was out of the question there.

All these things considered, the milliner's decision was, on perfectly
prudential and virtuous motives, in favour of Wright. Miss Barton's
_heart_, to use her own misapplied term, spoke warmly in his favour; for
he was, without any comparison, the _handsomest_ of her lovers; and
his simplicity and apparent ignorance of the world were rather
recommendations than objections.

Upon her second interview with him, she had, however, some reason to