"Add hens! to scratch up your neighbors' flower beds and give completeness to your lives!" laughed Mrs. Betty, who felt and declared that: "I haven't had so much fun in a single morning since—I can't tell when. I wouldn't have missed this!"
"Seems as if everybody in the whole town must have read and answered that foolish thing. I—what shall we do? How possibly get rid of all these people!" cried the mistress of Skyrie in real distress.
As yet neither she nor Mrs. Cecil had observed Helena's faintness, for the back of the carriage was toward them now and some distance down the road. But they had observed Mr. Chester's swift departure houseward, and had seen Dorothy leap like a flash over the intervening wall, toward the kitchen door and the well which was near it.
"Makes me think of the 'Light Brigade,' with horses for 'cannon.' That's shameful for me! though, there are cows to the right of them, pigs underneath them, and horses—did anybody ever see such a collection?" asked Mrs. Calvert, clutching Mrs. Chester's arm to keep herself from slipping downward from the bank into the briars below. Then suddenly again exclaiming: "Look at that child! She's carrying water in a pitcher. She's making her way through those men out into the road again. Something has happened. Somebody is in trouble. Oh! it must be that frail-looking daughter of the Montaignes! See. Dorothy is running now straight toward the carriage."
This was sufficient to banish all amusement from Mrs. Cecil's manner and she was instantly upon Dorothy's trail, moving with an ease and swiftness that amazed Mrs. Chester, active though she herself was. Indeed, the girl had to slacken her speed in order not to spill all the water from the pitcher, and so the pair reached the side of the carriage together; the old gentlewoman nodding approval for the presence of mind which Dorothy had shown.
However, Helena was rapidly recovering from her brief swoon, and her mother looked askance at the cracked pitcher in which the water had been brought and the rusty tin cup in which it was offered; Dorothy having seized the utensils always left lying beside the well, for the convenience of passers-by, without waiting to secure more presentable articles.
Still, it was Mrs. Calvert whose hand proffered the refreshing draught, and it was Mrs. Calvert's voice which was saying, in its most aristocratic yet kindest accents:
"I did not at once see that your daughter was ill. Your husband left us at the very first crossroad toward your place and I was absorbed with my new-old neighbors' affairs. Deerhurst is nearer than the Towers. Why not drive there first and let Miss Helena rest awhile before going further?"
Now the invitation was given in all sincerity, though the mistress of Deerhurst was inwardly smiling at the pictured face of Seth Winters, had he been there to hear her thus cordially soliciting for guests the people she had once declared she would never willingly know. Only the slightest reluctance accompanied her words. She had intended calling upon the Chesters in their home and upon having a plain business talk with "Johnnie." However, from all appearances at the cottage beyond, this was not an opportune time for such an interview and one that could easily be postponed. At present, the Skyrie family had their hands sufficiently full of more pressing affairs.
Helena Montaigne shared her father's social ambition, so it was with a wan, sweet smile that she accepted from the mistress of Deerhurst the battered tin cup that she would have rejected had Dorothy held it upwards. Also, after graciously sipping a few drops of the refreshing water, she accepted for herself and mother—it was always Helena who settled such matters—that most gratifying invitation to the mansion. More than that she rose from her place on the wide back seat of the carriage and offered it to Mrs. Cecil, rather than that lady should be forced to ride backwards. But this sacrifice was declined: