“La, ma’am, I was so afraid it would make you angry, ma’am—that was what made me so backward in mentioning it; but, to be sure, Mad. de Rosier, and the young ladies, and Master Herbert, I suppose, thought you couldn’t hear, because it was in the back parlour, ma’am.”
“Hear what? what was in the back parlour?”
“Only a dulcimer man, ma’am, playing for the young ladies.”
“Did you tell them I was ill, Grace?”
It was the second time Mrs. Harcourt had asked this question. Grace was gratified by this symptom.
“Indeed, ma’am,” she replied, “I did make bold to tell Master Herbert, that I was afraid you would hear him jumping and making such an uproar up and down the stairs; but to be sure, I did not say a word to the young ladies—as Mad. de Rosier was by, I thought she knew best.”
A gentle knock at the door interrupted Mrs. Grace’s charitable animadversions.
“Bless me, if it isn’t the young ladies! I’m sure I thought they were gone out in the coach.”
As Isabella and Matilda came up to the side of their mother’s bed, she said, in a languid voice—
“I hope, Matilda, my dear, you did not stay at home on my account—Is Isabella there? What book has she in her hand?”