"I see her once afore under them trees," he said, "with a gentleman. I see a many and I don't often take notice. But she's a rare sort, she is! and as good as she's good-looking. I wish you a good-evening, sir."
Then he retired into his cabin and ruminated on this "precious start," as he called it, during his tea.
Meantime, Maud took her charge home, and would fain have put her to bed. For this sanatory measure, however, Dorothea, who had recovered consciousness, seemed to entertain an unaccountable repugnance. She consented, indeed, to lie down for an hour or two, but could not conceal a wild, restless anxiety to depart as soon as possible. Something more than the obvious astonishment of the servants, something more than the incongruity of the situation, seemed prompting her to leave Lady Bearwarden's house without delay and fly from the presence of almost the first friend she had ever known in her life.
When the bustle and excitement consequent on this little adventure had subsided, her ladyship found herself once more face to face with her own sorrow, and the despondency she had shaken off during a time of action gathered again all the blacker and heavier round her heart. She was glad to find distraction in the arrival of a nameless visitor, announced by the most pompous of footmen as "a young person desirous of waiting on her ladyship."
"Show her up," said Lady Bearwarden; and for the first time in their lives the two sisters stood face to face.
Each started, as if she had come suddenly on her own reflection in a mirror. During a few seconds both looked stupefied, bewildered. Lady Bearwarden spoke first.
"You wish to see me, I believe. A sick person has just been brought into the house, and we are rather in confusion. I fear you have been kept waiting."
"I called while your ladyship was out," answered Nina. "So I walked about till I thought you must have come home again. You've never seen me before--I didn't even know where you lived--I found your address in the Court Guide--O! I can't say it properly, but I did so want to speak to you. I hope I haven't done anything rude or wrong."
There was no mistaking the refinement of Nina's voice and manner.
Lady Bearwarden recognised one of her own station at a glance. And this girl so like herself--how beautiful she was! How beautiful they both were!