“Hooray!” said Ben.
“Hurroa!” said Dan.
Angela turned.
“Go back to your mother, boys. Here is a penny for you, Dan, and another for you, Ben. Go back to your mother, and say that I have found my friend, Miss Nesta Aldworth, and am taking her back to Castle Walworth.”
This was a most awe-inspiring message; the boys, young as they were, understood some of its grand import. They rushed presently into their mother’s cottage.
“You be a little flat, mammy!” they said. “Why, the gel you give red herrings to, and no butter, is a friend of our Miss Angela’s.”
“The Lord forgive me!” said Mrs Hogg, and she forgot all about her washing, and sat down on the first chair she could find, and let her broad toil-worn hands spread themselves out one on each knee.
“The Lord forgive me!” she said at intervals.
Ben was deeply touched. He went and bought some fruit with his penny and pressed it on his mother, but she scarcely seemed to see it.
“To think as I complained to her of robbing me of half my rightful bedclothes,” was her next remark. “May I see myself in my true light in the future. How could I tell? How could I tell?”