"Very true, my love. I never thought of it in that way!" said Mrs. Chloe. "But tell me, don't you ever feel afraid at night, when you wake up and hear all sorts of strange noises, like sighs and moans and people walking and whispering?"
"Oh yes, very often. But, Aunt Chloe, if you are afraid in your snug pretty little room with Bateson within call, and your whistle just at your head, I wonder what you would say to sleeping where Lucy and I used to do, in one corner of the great deserted dormitory, with half the house shut up and in ruins, and those great awful caverns underneath it."
"Yes, I never was so very much afraid, till after I had seen the caverns and the black water!" I added. "I dream of them now at times."
"How dreadful!" said Mrs. Chloe shuddering. "What did you do?"
"Mother Prudentia used to tell us to put ourselves into the hands of God, and the Holy Virgin, and repeat the psalm 'Qui habitat,'—the ninety-first, you know. I used to feel so safe and easy when I came to, 'He shall cover thee with His wings.'"
"My dear, will you look me out that psalm? I think I will learn it by heart!" said Mrs. Chloe. "Of course I have read it hundreds of times, but somehow I never thought it was me whom He would cover. Thank you, my dear, you have done me a great deal of good."
Amabel found the psalm in Mrs. Chloe's great prayer-book, and I noticed afterwards that she kept it open by her, and used to be murmuring verses over to herself, whenever she was alone with her knitting—the only work she ever attempted nowadays. She had taken to sitting most of the time in our cheerful sunny little room, and though she was no great help to our lessons, being one of those persons who never can refrain from talking when there is any one to talk to, we were very glad to have her there, and to give up our time to her, for we both felt we should not have her very long.
But I am wandering a long way from Mrs. Philippa and her affairs. The lady accomplished her journey in safety, as she sent word when the carriage came back, and felt herself much better for the change. She sent her love to Mrs. Deborah, with a handsome new china jug—Mrs. Deborah was fond of jugs—and to Mrs. Chloe, a soft warm shawl and a pair of fur-lined slippers; and there were little presents for Amabel and myself, and a parcel of needles, knitting-pins and thread for the school children.
Richard on being questioned, declared that Mrs. Philippa had purchased all these things herself—that she was buying "a power of new gowns," and was "as pert as a pyet," and moreover had not called him a fool once since he left the Hall. By all which signs, he concluded infallibly, that Mrs. Philippa was not long for this world.
"Did you see any one that we know, Richard, beside Lady Betty's family?" asked Mrs. Chloe.