"How was she saved?"
"Nobody knows, sir."
"She don't even know herself, sir."
These replies were all made in a breath.
"Don't even know herself! What is the meaning of that?"
"Yes, sir. No, sir. You see, sir," began half a hundred voices.
"Hush, for Heaven's sake! Speak one at a time. Mrs. Smith, do you answer me. How was Miss Tabby saved?" inquired Lyon Berners, appealing to the oldest and wisest woman of the assembly, and silencing the others by a gesture.
"Indeed we don't know how she was reskeed, sir. She was brought home by a quarryman, but, she was in a cowld fever, and couldn't give no account of herself, nor nothing," replied the old woman.
"Where is she?"