and a little warm coat for me; and when the milliner came, he told her he had stolen a little heiress, and we were going to Gretna Green in such a hurry, that the young lady had no time to put on her bonnet before she came out.  The milliner said I was a pretty little heiress, and she wished us a pleasant journey.  When we had breakfasted, and I was equipped in my new coat and bonnet, I jumped into the chaise again, as warm and as lively as a little bird.

When it grew dark, we entered a large city; the chaise began to roll over the stones, and I saw the lamps ranged along London streets.

Though we had breakfasted and dined upon the road, and I had got out of one chaise into another many times, and was now riding on in the dark, I never once considered where I was, or where I was going to.  I put my head out of the chaise window, and admired those beautiful lights.  I was sorry when the chaise stopped, and I could no longer look at the brilliant rows of lighted lamps.

Taken away by a stranger under a pretence of a short ride, and brought quite to London, do you not expect some perilous end of this adventure?  Ah! it was my papa himself, though I did not know who he was, till after he had put me into my mamma’s arms, and told her how he had run away with his own little daughter.  “It is your papa, my dear, that has brought you to your own home.”  “This is your mamma, my love,” they both exclaimed at once.  Mamma cried for joy to see me, and she wept again, when she heard my papa tell what a neglected child I had been at my uncle’s.  This he had found out, he said, by my own innocent prattle, and that he was so offended with his brother, my uncle, that he would not enter his house; and then he said what a little happy good child I had been all the way, and that when he found I did not know him, he would not tell me who he was, for the sake of the pleasant surprise it would be to me.  It was a surprise and a happiness indeed, after living with unkind relations, all at once to know I was at home with my own dear papa and mamma.

My mamma ordered tea.  Whenever I happen to like my tea very much, I always think of the delicious cup of tea mamma gave us after our journey.  I think I see the urn smoking before me now, and papa wheeling the sopha round, that I might sit between them at the table.

Mamma called me Little Run-away, and said it was very well it was only papa.  I told her how we frightened the old gardener, and opened my eyes to shew her how he stared, and how my papa made the milliner believe we were going to Gretna Green.  Mamma looked grave, and said she was almost frightened to find I had been so fearless; but I promised her another time I would not go into a post-chaise with a gentleman, without asking him who he was; and then she laughed, and seemed very well satisfied.

Mamma, to my fancy, looked very handsome.  She was very nicely dressed, quite like a fine lady.  I held up my head, and felt very proud that I had such a papa and mamma.  I thought to myself, “O dear, my cousins’ papa and mamma are not to be compared to mine.”