"About half an hour, I think."
"Is Mr. Maxfield at home?"
"No, ma'am; master is at Duckwell, and has been since Saturday."
"Who is it, Sally?" cried Betty Grimshaw's voice from the parlour, and upon hearing it Castalia walked hastily away.
When she reached her own home again, between fatigue and excitement she could scarcely stand. She threw herself on the sofa in her little drawing-room, unable to mount the stairs.
"Deary me, missus," cried Polly, who happened to admit her, "why you're a'most dead! Where-ever have you been?"
"I've been walking in the fields. I came round by the road. I'm very tired."
"Tired? Nay, and well you may be if you took all that round! I thought you'd happen been into Whitford. Lawk, how you're squashing your bonnet! Let me take it off for you."
"I don't care; leave it alone."
But Polly would not endure to see "good clothes ruinated," as she said, so she removed her mistress's shawl and bonnet—folding, and smoothing, and straightening them as well as she could. "Now you'd better take a drop o' wine," she said. "You're a'most green. I never saw such a colour."