“Would you be so good as to ask him? It is on very particular business.”
“Can you give me a card? your name, perhaps, will do, if you have not a card. I say, Simmons” (to a lady’s-maid crossing the hall), “is the judge up yet?”
“Oh, yes! he’s in his dressing-room this half-hour. My lady is coming down directly. It is just breakfast-time.”
“Can’t you put it off and come again, a little later?” said he, turning once more to Ellinor—white Ellinor! trembling Ellinor!
“No! please let me come in. I will wait. I am sure Judge Corbet will see me, if you will tell him I am here. Miss Wilkins. He will know the name.”
“Well, then; will you wait here till I have got breakfast in?” said the man, letting her into the hall, and pointing to the bench there, he took her, from her dress, to be a lady’s-maid or governess, or at most a tradesman’s daughter; and, besides, he was behindhand with all his preparations. She came in and sat down.
“You will tell him I am here,” she said faintly.
“Oh, yes, never fear: I’ll send up word, though I don’t believe he’ll come to you before breakfast.”
He told a page, who ran upstairs, and, knocking at the judge’s door, said that a Miss Jenkins wanted to speak to him.
“Who?” asked the judge from the inside.