she could not help screaming with joy, because she had it in her
power to gratify her dear sister's wish; a lady in the neighbourhood
having promised to send her, as a present, a couple of delicate
pine-apples, which she would on that very day go in quest of.

Mrs. Pickle would by no means consent to this proposal, on pretence
of sparing the other unnecessary fatigue; and assured her, that if
she had any desire to eat a pine-apple, it was so faint, that the
disappointment could produce no bad consequence. But this assurance
was conveyed in a manner, which she knew very well how to adopt,
that, instead of dissuading, rather stimulated Mrs. Grizzle to set
out immediately, not on a visit to that lady, whose promise she
herself had feigned with a view of consulting her sister's tranquility,
but on a random Search through the whole country for this unlucky
fruit, which was like to produce so much vexation and prejudice to
her and her father's house.

During three whole days and nights did she, attended by a valet,
ride from place to place without success, unmindful of her health,
and careless of her reputation, that began to suffer from the nature
of her inquiry, which was pursued with such peculiar eagerness and
distraction, that everybody with whom she conversed, looked upon her
as an unhappy person, whose intellects were not a little disordered.

Baffled in all her researches within the country, she at length
decided to visit that very nobleman at whose house the officious
stranger had been (for her) so unfortunately regaled, and actually
arrived, in a post-chaise, at the place of his habitation, when
she introduced her business as an affair on which the happiness of
a whole family depended. By virtue of a present to his lordship's