“You must not call me miss, my name is Rosamund. I am your husband’s sister.”
But this allusion made her blush painfully, and she drew once more into her shell.
When Hetty and I had finished our chicken, I set what was left carefully away, and putting out one of the candles sat down by the bedside, and told my new sister that she must go to sleep.
“But you, miss?—oh! I beg your pardon,”—she stopped, confusion in her tone.
“Never mind,” I said, soothingly. I saw this was not the time to commence her education. “Go to sleep,” I said, and bending forward I touched her forehead lightly with my lips. Her eyes looked full back into mine. I had never seen such a wealth of love in any eyes. The lids fell languidly over them. She obeyed me with a happy, satisfied sigh.
Chapter Five.
Lady Ursula.
Hetty slept fairly well. I sat broad awake by her bedside. I was too young, too fresh, too strong to be exhausted by this evening’s excitement and hurry. I was not tired enough to drop asleep in the hard chair by my sister’s bedside. My pulses were beating high. I sat all through the long night, excited, anxious, full of a thousand forebodings and troubles. I gave my patient Brand’s jelly and grapes when she woke in the night, and early in the morning I boiled an egg, made some crisp toast, and a teapot of fragrant tea, and gave Hetty her breakfast. Afterwards I washed and dressed her; I combed out her hair, and tied it into a soft mass. I straightened the bed, and made it look as tidy as such a miserable bed could be, and then putting some grapes within reach, and the flowers on a little table, where she could look at them, I ran down-stairs to interview the landlady.