"Poor Rorie, I told him to keep his promise, and he has obeyed me," she said to herself. "Can I be angry with him for that? I ought to feel proud and glad that we were both strong enough to do our duty."
She dressed slowly, languid after the excitement of yesterday, and then went slowly down the broad bare staircase to Miss Skipwith's parlour.
The lady of the manor received her with affectionate greeting, and had a special pot of tea brewed for her, and insisted upon her eating some dry toast, a form of nourishment which this temperate lady deemed a panacea in illness.
"I was positively alarmed about you last night, my dear," she said; "you were so feverish and excited. You read too much, for the first day."
"I'm afraid I did," assented Vixen, with a faint smile; "and the worst of it is, I believe I have forgotten every word I read."
"Surely not!" cried Miss Skipwith, horrified at this admission. "You seemed so impressed—so interested. You were so full of your subject."
"I have a faint recollection of the little men in the hieroglyphics," said Vixen; "but all the rest is gone. The images of Antony and Cleopatra, in Shakespeare's play, bring Egypt more vividly before me than all the history I read yesterday."
Miss Skipwith looked shocked, just as if some improper character in real life had been brought before her.
"Cleopatra was very disreputable, and she was not Egyptian," she remarked severely. "I am sorry you should waste your thoughts upon such a person."
"I think she is the most interesting woman in ancient history," said Vixen wilfully, "as Mary Queen of Scots is in modern history. It is not the good people whose images take hold of one's fancy, What a faint idea one has of Lady Jane Grey, And, in Schiller's 'Don Carlos,' I confess the Marquis of Posa never interested me half so keenly as Philip of Spain."