“What harm? Oh, child, you read the papers, and see how busy the devil is and how artful his children are. Every once in a while you see an account of some child or young girl kidnapped and made away with, and I suppose as there’s many and many a case that never even gets into the newspapers.”
“I am sorry to hear that, Aunt Sophie; but there was no danger in my case, for madame sent me home in a carriage, under the care of her aged secretary.”
“So I saw. So I saw. And she was in the right of it. Well, my dear, it is after one o’clock, and I think we had better get to bed as soon as we can,” said the old lady, as they entered the double-bedded chamber, which they still occupied together.
The room vacated by the minister having been taken by the organist.
Early the next morning, as Aunt Sophie, having got through with the breakfast, was preparing to go to market, Lilith said to her:
“I cannot walk out with you to-day, dear. I am expecting the Baroness Von Bruyin, and as I do not know at what hour she may find it convenient to call, I must stay in until she does.”
“I am awful jealous of that baroness,” said the little old lady, in a pathetic tone, shaking her little rumpled gray head.
“You need not be. There is no woman in the world I love half so much as I do you, dear Aunt Sophie,” said Lilith.
“Well, then, why won’t you live long of me always and be my child, instead of going off to foreign parts with that baroness?”
“Because it would not be right, dear Aunt Sophie.”