She took my hand and led me up carefully, as if I were a baby. She had a very soft hand, and its touch was gentle and timid. When we had reached the second-floor landing, she paused, and opened a door that led into a front bed-room, large and airy, and overlooking the dull square below.
"Don't you think, dear?" suggested the lady, with hesitating kindness,— "don't you think you had better let me take off your things?"
"I can take them off, Ma'am, thank you."
"Can you? Very well, dear; is there anything I can do for you?"
"Nothing, Ma'am, thank you."
"Very well. You will not look out of the window, will you? you might fall out, you know, and be killed."
I promised not to look out; she called me a dear child, and left me. In a few minutes I joined her below. I found her sitting alone in a dull and sombre English-looking parlour. She seemed flurried on seeing me, and spoke as if she had intended to go and fetch me, for fear, I suppose, of any accident on the way; but satisfied that all was right, she subsided into what appeared to be her habitual placidity. She had a kind face, that had been pretty, and was still pleasant, though it wore a somewhat uneasy expression, as if its owner were too much troubled with conscientious scruples and misgivings.
"Do you know, Ma'am, if Mr. Thornton will soon come?" I asked, after vainly waiting for my grandfather to make his appearance.
"He is gone, my dear," she replied, calmly. "I said you were taking off your things, and he said he had nothing to say to you; but you may be quite easy; it is all settled."
"Am I to stay with you, Ma'am?"