“Ye’ll be more so, mayhap. I wash my hands o’ ye,” said Mrs. Tarnley, with a furious look, and a sharp little stamp on the floor. “I thought o’ nothing but your mistress’s good, and if ye tell her I was here, I’ll explain all, for I won’t lie under no surmises, and I think ’twill be the death of her.”
“Oh, this place, this hawful place! I never was so frightened in my days,” said Dulcibella, looking very white.
“She’s in the garden now, I do suppose,” said Mildred, “and if ye mean to tell her what I was about, ’taint a pin’s head to me, but I’ll go out and tell her myself, and even if she lives through it, she’ll never hold up her head more, and that’s all you’ll hear from Mildred Tarnley.”
“Oh, dear! dear! dear! my heart, how it goes!”
“Come, come, woman, you’re nothin’ so squeamish, I dare say.”
“Well,” said Dulcibella; “it may be all as you say, ma’am, and I’ll say ye this justice, I ha’n’t missed to the value of a pennypiece since we come here, but if ye promise me, only ye won’t come up here no more while we’re out, Mrs. Tarnley, I won’t say nothing about it.”
“That settles it, keep your word, Mrs. Crane, and I’ll keep mine; I’ll burn my fingers no more in other people’s messes;” and she shook the key with a considerable gingle of the whole bunch from the keyhole, and popped it grimly into her pocket.
“Your sarvant, Mrs. Crane.”
“Yours, Mrs. Tarnley, ma’am,” replied Dulcibella.
And the interview which had commenced so brusquely, ended with ceremony, as Mildred Tarnley withdrew.