At the kindly word and manner, Elizabeth, bewildered and exhausted with the excitement she had gone through, and agitated by the feeling of having, for the first time in her life, to act on her own responsibility, gave way a little. She did not exactly cry, but she was very near it.
Miss Balquidder called over the stair-head, in her quick, imperative voice—
"David, is your wife away to her bed yet?"
"No, ma'am."
"Then tell her to fetch this young woman to the kitchen and give her some supper. And afterward, will you see her safe home, poor lassie? She's awfully tired, you see."
"Yes, ma'am."
And following David's gray head, Elizabeth, for the first time since she came to London, took a comfortable meal in a comfortable kitchen, seasoned with such stories of Miss Balquidder's goodness and generosity, that when, an hour after, she went home and to sleep, it was with a quieter and more hopeful than she could have believed possible under the circumstances.
CHAPTER XVI.
Next morning, while with that cheerful, unanxious countenance which those about an invalid must learn continually to wear, Elizabeth was trying to persuade her mistress not to rise, she heard a knock, and made some excuse for escaping. She well knew what it was and who had come.
There, in the parlor, sat Miss Hilary, Mrs. Jones talking at her rather than to her, for she hardly seemed to hear. But that she had heard every thing was clear enough. Her drawn white face, the tight clasp of her hands, showed that the ill tidings had struck her hard.