Margaret willingly gave her consent. Harriet stooped over her desk, and hastily wrote a few lines on a scrap of paper.
"If I am hors-de-combat to-morrow, Margaret," she said, "give this to Mr. Gage."
A stamp of her slender foot, as she pronounced his name, was the only indication of feeling that she betrayed.
Margaret really did not know if it was a cartel of defiance, but she thought it better to promise compliance.
"Then kiss me, ma mie, and go to sleep," said Harriet, "we will talk over our adventures to-morrow."
CHAPTER VI.
Mar. Yes, a letter.
She brings no challenge sure.
THE MAID IN THE MILL.
Val. He must not then be angry
That loses her.
Gom. Oh! that were Sir, unworthy.
Mir. A little sorrow he may find.
Val. 'Tis manly.
THE KNIGHT OF MALTA.
The next morning Harriet was in a high fever. Mr. Singleton said she had nobody to thank for it but herself. She had no business at a ball when she was suffering from a severe cold, unless she had chosen to go in a fur cloak. That he wondered how any ladies escaped without catching their death at such places; and that he hoped the servant who was gone for the doctor would not be an hour on the road. Margaret seriously alarmed about her friend, had been making the breakfast in silence, until Mr. Singleton's attack upon Harriet led her to say, with tearful eyes, that she believed Harriet had gone to the ball entirely on her account, and that she felt so very sorry she had not more decidedly opposed it.
Mr. Gage, who had said nothing upon the subject in any way, and who had hardly seemed to know Harriet was not at table, now begged Margaret not to allow herself to feel any concern on that point, for that he believed Miss Conway had been always rather remarkable for her imprudences. Margaret always disliked his polite phrases, and the persuasive interest of his manner, but now they seemed more than ever out of place. The slip of paper that Harriet had entrusted to her was lying folded by her side—she had no idea what it might contain; but now, seeing Mr. Humphries standing at the window with Mr. Singleton, she took it up timidly, and said with a little hesitation:—"Harriet desired me to give you this paper, Mr. Gage."