While she scalded and wiped the cups (one of his requirements), he walked to the hearth, glanced at his watch, and said:
"Let me have my coffee at once. I have an early engagement. As it threatens snow, you must keep indoors today."
"I am obliged to attend the Cantata rehearsal at Mrs. Brompton's."
"Then I will order the carriage to be placed at your disposal. What hour?"
"One o'clock."
Upon her plate lay a sealed envelope, and as she put it in her pocket, his keen eyes searched her countenance.
"Did you sleep well? I should judge you had not closed your eyes."
"I wrote a long letter to mother, and afterward I could not sleep."
"You look as if you had grown five years older, since you gave me my coffee yesterday. When the rehearsal ends, I wish you to come directly home and go to sleep; for there will be company here to-day, and it might be rather unflattering to me as guardian, to present my ward to strangers, and imagine their comments on your weary hollow eyes and face as blanched, as 'pale as Seneca's Paulina.'"