Oh! bad as Adeline was at heart—selfish as she was by nature and by education,—it would have moved a savage to have seen the imploring, beseeching look which, through her tears, she cast upon Lydia's countenance.
"My hair!" said Lydia, imperatively.
Then Lady Ravensworth rose, and meekly and timidly began to perform that menial office for her own menial.
"I never thought," observed Lydia, "while I was a wanderer and an outcast in the streets,—as, for instance, on the occasion when I accosted you, in the bitterness of my starving condition, in Saint James's Street, and when your lacqueys thrust me back, your husband declaring that it was easy to see what I was, and your carriage dashing me upon the kerb-stone,—little did I think then that the time would ever be when a peeress of England should dress my hair—and least of all that this peeress should be you! But when, in your pride, you spurned the worm—you knew not that the day could ever possibly come for that worm to raise its head and sting you! Think you that I value any peculiar arrangement which you can bestow upon my hair? Think you that I cannot even, were I still vain, adapt it more to my taste with my own hands? Yes—certainly I could! But I compel you to attend upon me thus—I constitute myself the mistress, and make you the menial, when we are alone together—because it is the principal element of my vengeance. It degrades you—it renders you little in your own eyes,—you who were once so great—so haughty—and so proud!"
In this strain did Lydia Hutchinson continue to speak, while Lady Ravensworth arranged her hair.
And each word that the vindictive woman uttered, fell like a drop of molten lead upon the already lacerated heart of the unfortunate Adeline.
At length the ordeal—that same ordeal which had characterised each morning since Lydia Hutchinson had become an inmate of Ravensworth Hall—was over; and Adeline was released from that horrible tyranny—but only for a short time.
CHAPTER CCXIV.
THE DUELLISTS.
When Lady Ravensworth descended to the breakfast parlour, she summoned her husband's principal valet, Quentin, to her presence, and desired him to hasten and inform his lordship that the morning meal was served up.
Quentin bowed and retired.