"If you will—but supper is ready, Mattie."
"Not any for me. Good night."
Mattie thought that she had made good her escape, but she was mistaken; on the stairs Ann Packet had been waiting to waylay her, and to talk of the little events of that day—any talk whatever, so that she saw Mattie for a while, after the day's labour was ended. Mattie was considerate even in her distress; she stood on the stairs listening to Ann's rambling accounts of minor things, waiting for the end of the narrative, and only expressing her weariness by a little quivering sigh, now and then.
After the story there was Ann Packet to hold the candle closer to her face, and see a change in Mattie also. Mattie had feared this—knowing Ann's vigilance—but there was the old plea of a headache to urge, and all the old receipts of which Ann Packet had ever heard for the headache to listen to. Ann Packet knew an old woman of her workhouse days who had had "drefful headaches," and this was how she cured hers—and off went Ann Packet into more rambling incoherencies.
All things have an end; Mattie was free at last. At last the door locked, and the room she had longed for, feared, and longed for again, engulphing her. Mattie took off her bonnet, opened noiselessly the window for the air which she felt she needed, and then dropped into a chair, and looked out at the dark sky, and the bright stars that were shimmering up there, where all seemed peace!
The battle was not over, and Mattie was unconvinced still.
"Is it true?" she asked again; "is it ALL true!"