“Why, no! He’ll know, of course. And, please, has Aunt Alice a cushion for her back?”
Tabitha laughed curtly. “Cushions grow not in prisons, child. Nay, she’s never a cushion.”
“Oh, I’m sorry!” said Christie mournfully. “And I’ve got three! I wish I could give her one of mine.”
“Well, I scarce reckon she’d have leave to keep it, child. Howbeit, thou canst pray thy father to make inquiration.”
“Oh ay! I’ll pray Father to ask. Thank you, Aunt Tabitha. Was Aunt Alice very, very pleased to see you?”
“Didn’t ask her. She said some’at none so far off it. Dear heart! but what ado is here?”
And Tabitha rose to examine the details of the “ado.” Two fine horses stood before the gate, each laden with saddle and pillion, the former holding a serving-man, and the latter a lady. From a third horse the rider, also a man-servant in livery, had alighted, and he was now coming to help the ladies down. They were handsomely dressed, in a style which showed them to be people of some consequence: for in those days the texture of a woman’s hood, the number of her pearls, and the breadth of her lace and fur were carefully regulated by sumptuary laws, and woe betide the esquire’s daughter, or the knight’s wife, who presumed to poach on the widths reserved for a Baroness!
“Bless us! whoever be these?” inquired Tabitha of nobody in particular. “I know never a one of their faces. Have they dropped from the clouds?”
“Perhaps it’s a mistake,” suggested Christie.
“Verily, so I think,” rejoined her aunt. “I’d best have gone myself to them—I’m feared Nell shall scarce—”