"Well, Donica Gwynn, you've come at last! you have kept my horses standing at the door—a thing I never do myself—for three-quarters of an hour and four minutes!"
Donica Gwynn was sorry; but she could not help it. She explained how the delay had occurred, and, though respectful, her explanation was curt and dry in proportion to the sharpness and dryness of her reception.
"Sit down, Donica," said the lady, relenting loftily. "How do you do?"
"Pretty well, I thank your ladyship; and I hope I see you well, my lady."
"As well as I can ever be, Donica, and that is but poorly. I'm going, you know, to Marlowe."
"I'm rayther glad on it, my lady."
"And I wish to know why?" said Lady Alice.
"I wrote the why and the wherefore, my lady, in my letter," answered the ex-house-keeper, looking askance on the table, and closing her thin lips tightly when she had spoken.
"Your letter, my good Donica, it is next to impossible to read, and quite impossible to understand. What I want to know distinctly is, why you have urged me so vehemently to go to Marlowe."
"Well, my lady, I thought I said pretty plain it was about my Lady Jane, the pretty creature you had on visits here, and liked so well, poor thing; an' it seemed to me she's like to be in danger where she is. I can't explain how exactly; but General Lennox is gone up to London, and I think, my lady, you ought to get her out of that unlucky room, where he has put her; and, at all events, to keep as near to her as you can yourself, at all times."