CHAPTER XXI.
URSULA'S RECEPTION.
'Thy wish was father, Harry, to that thought.'—SHAKESPEARE.
It was at half-past seven o'clock that Ursula Egremont's cab stopped at St. Ambrose's Road. She had missed the express train, and had to come on by a stopping one. But here at last she was, with eyes even by gaslight full of loving recognition, a hand full of her cab-fare, a heart full of throbbing hope and fear, a voice full of anxiety, as she inquired of the astonished servant, 'Louisa, Louisa, how is Aunt Ursel!' and, without awaiting the reply, she opened the adjoining door. There sat, with their evening meal on the table, not only Mary Nugent, but Miss Headworth herself.
Nuttie rushed at her, and there was an incoherency of exclamations, the first thing that made itself clear to the senses of the traveller being, 'Ill, my dear? No such thing! Only I had a bad cold, and Mary here is only too careful of me.'
'But Mark said you had bronchitis.'
'What could have put that into his head? He did not write it, surely?'
'He wrote it to Annaple Ruthven, and she told Blanche.'
'Oh!' and Mary Nugent's tone was rather nettling.
'And then it was such a terrible time since we had heard anything,' added Nuttie, on the defensive.