"A headache! Oh that is nothing—and yet it might be the beginning of an illness too!" added her ladyship. "Where had you been when I met you this afternoon?"
"To visit a poor sick woman, madame."
"A poor sick woman—very likely she had smallpox or something, and here you have been sitting with me all this time!" exclaimed her ladyship: "Who knows what I may have caught."
"The poor woman had nothing infectious," Amabel began, but Lady Throckmorton cut her short—
"There! Don't talk to me child—Williams, take these young ladies to Mrs. Thorpe's, and come back for me as quickly as you can; and mind you open all the glasses of the carriage. There! Good-night."
I hardly know how Williams made a passage for us through the crowd, but he did somehow, and we were quickly carried to Mrs. Thorpe's door, which indeed, was not far off. The good woman was up, and opened to us before the lackey had time to knock. She received us in absolute silence, and led the way to our room, where she lighted our candles, and turning round she addressed us with emphasis.
"Young ladies, I excuse you this time, seeing that you were, so to speak, taken at unawares; but this a thing that must never happen again; your aunts, who have known me for many years, have seen fit to place you under my care, and to me, you must be accountable, as much so, as the youngest apprentice I have. I would not have a young maiden in my house on any other terms—no! Not if she were the Queen's own daughter. You know my conditions now, and I expect you to abide by them."
She bade us a short good-night, and was turning away, when Amabel made bold to ask her for some drops for my head. She was all sympathy directly, helped me to undress, and brought me I knew not what of smelling-salts and Hungary water.
The kindness set me off into the fit of hysterical crying, which had been impending all the evening. Mrs. Thorpe dosed me with sal volatile, and sat by me till I fell asleep, to be tormented half the night with horrible dreams, in which I was alternately a fly, a mouse, and a persecuted Methodist; and Lady Throckmorton a spider, a fly, and a mad bull, intent on sending me for a soldier.
