“Why will there? Hast been at one to-night?”
“No.” Elizabeth checked herself from saying more. What a difference there was between Amy’s fancies and the stern realities she knew!
“There’s no lugging nought out of thee!” said Amy with a pout. “Thou’rt as close shut as an oyster shell.”
And she went back to the mirror, and began to plait her hair, the more conveniently to tuck it under her night-cap. Oh, how Elizabeth longed for a safe confidant that night! Sometimes she felt as though she must pour out her knowledge and her fears—to Amy, if she could get no one else. But she knew too well that, without any evil intention, Amy would be certain to make mischief from sheer love of gossip, the moment she met with any one who would listen to her.
“Mistress Amy, I’m right weary. Pray you, leave me be.”
“Hold thy tongue if thou wilt. I want nought with thee, not I,” replied Amy, with equal crossness and untruth, since, as she would herself have expressed it, she was dying to know what Elizabeth could have done to make her mother so angry. But Amy was angry herself now. “Get thee abed, Mistress Glum-face; I’ll pay thee out some day: see if I don’t!”
Elizabeth’s reply was to kneel down for prayer. There was one safe Confidant, who could be relied upon for sympathy and secrecy: and He might be spoken to without words. It was well; for the words refused to come. Only one thing would present itself to Elizabeth’s weary heart and brain: and that was the speech of little Cissy, that, “it would be all right if she asked God to see to it.” A sob broke from her, as she sent up to Heaven the one petition of which alone she felt capable just then—“Lord, help me!” He would know how and when to help. Elizabeth dropped her trouble into the Almighty hands, and left it there. Then she rose, undressed, and lay down beside Amy, who was already in bed.
Amy Clere was not an ill-natured girl, and her anger never lasted long. When she heard Elizabeth’s sob, her heart smote her a little: but she said to herself, that she was “not going to humble herself to that crusty Bess,” so she turned round and went to sleep.