They were only too much used to such disturbance, and were asleep again before it was over; but Judith could only lie on, shaking with terror—not personal—but at the awful words she heard, and praying that they might not be visited on that unhappy household, but that God would forgive.
It was not till the next day when the house was tolerably quiet, and Molly, rather fretful and grumbling, had helped Judith down to her place by the fire, that she ventured the question, “Molly, you have not a bit more of that pretty wall-paper you gave me for my screen?”
“Did it get broke last night in Dan’s drunken tantrums?”
“Not more than I can mend, but little Miss Sophia, she says that the paper in the Greenhow drawing-room is quite spoilt for want of a piece to cover up a bit that was put on wrong.”
“My patience! And how did Miss Sophia come to know anything about it?”
“She came up to see me, and bring those cutlets that you are warming up now.”
“Bless me! Well, Dan will be vexed,” said Molly. “Such mean folk as they are, a-peeping and a-prying after everything! They knows how to look after whatever they chooses to say is their own; and the captain, he made a row before about that there trumpery yard or two of paper that was the parkisit of them that hung it.”
“Miss Sophy says it spoilt the room.”
“Sp’ilt it! They’ve little to vex ’em that is terrified about that!”
“But have you got the bit, Molly?”