"That is for her to say. I should think she will come and fetch the girl."
"And how are we to live meanwhile?"
"You, as you please. For me, being now so well equipped and in good practice," answered Mr. Cuthbert Stevens, with an insinuating smile, "if I found it impossible to get any other sort of work, I could take another place as footman!"
Time passed calmly on for some months after Madam Passmore's disclosure to Celia. The latter gradually lost the fear of being claimed by strangers, and devoted herself to the very diligent study of the Scriptures. The Squire and Madam Passmore became slowly grayer, and Cicely Aggett a little whiter than before. But nothing occurred to break the quiet tenor of events, until Henrietta's marriage took place in the summer of 1711. The bridegroom was the heir of a family living in the adjoining division of the county, and the day was marked at Ashcliffe by much splendor and festivity. The bride showed herself quiet and practical on this occasion, as on all others; and as she had made her mark but little, she was comparatively little missed. Cicely cried because she thought it was the first break in the family, and Dolly because she fancied it was the proper thing to do; but Henrietta herself would have scorned to run the risk of spoiling her primrose silk by tears. Everything was done en règle—wedding and breakfast, throwing the slipper, dancing, and a number of other small observances which have since been counted tedious or unseemly. And when the day was over, and Henrietta Carey had departed to her new home, things sank down into their old groove at Ashcliffe Hall.
When the year 1712 dawned, only the three younger sisters of the family were at home. Harry had rejoined his regiment, and Charley was away on a visit to his eldest sister and her husband.
So matters stood at Ashcliffe Hall on that New Year's Day when what Celia dreaded came upon her.
[[1]] The peculiar drawing up of the chin towards the throat, known as bridling, was a very essential point of fine breeding at the date of this story.
[[2]] Of La Petite Patenôtre Blanche there are as many versions as lines. The one I give in the text rests on oral tradition. There is another known to me, probably an older version, which I should have preferred if I could have been quite sure of the words. It was used by a woman who died in 1818 at the age of 108, and who therefore was born four years before the death of Queen Anne. It was repeated to me when a child of eight, and the only copy I can recover is my own record at the time. I give this for what it is worth:
"Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John,
Bless the bed that I lie on;
Four corners to my bed,
Four angels at their head,—
One to read and one to write,
And two to guard my bed [at night.]"
[[3]] "The vapors" were pre-eminently the fashionable malady of the reign of Queen Anne. The name answered to the sensation now known as ennui: but doubtless, as Miss Strickland suggests in her "Lives of the Queens of England," it was frequently used when its victim was suffering from nothing more remarkable or novel than a bad temper.