The girl went away to obey them.
And in ten minutes Drusilla found herself in a small, clean, warm room, where she unloosed her clothes and lay down upon the bed, and, overcome by fatigue and excitement, fell fast asleep.
“Well, thank the Goodness Gracious for that. But who in the world would have thought it?” said mammy, as she quietly closed the shutters and darkened the room, and sat down to watch by her patient to try to guard her from disturbance until the carriage should come.
But the landlord’s hour stretched to two, and still the carriage did not appear and still the sleeper slept on.
At last, however, mammy heard the sound of wheels.
She went to the window, cautiously unclosed the shutters, looked out, and saw the most dilapidated old carryall she had ever set her eyes upon approaching the house.
“That’s it! and a purty object it is!” said mammy, as she went and looked to see what time it was by her mistress’s watch that lay upon the dressing-table. It was a quarter past five.
“Oh, dear me!” said the old woman in dismay, “when she finds out how late it is, and she so anxious to be off, she’ll just go and fling herself into fits, and then there! Let see! I gwine save her all that, and ’ceive her for her own good.”
And so saying, mammy opened the watch and turned back the hands from a quarter past five to a quarter to four.
Then she stole out of the room and told the waiter to bring a cup of tea and a round of toast upstairs quicker than he ever did anything in his life before.