She bounced from her chair as she spoke and brandished the tea-pot.
With a howl of dismay, old Sally turned tail and fled incontinently. Just waiting to exchange one approving glance with her patient, the nurse thought it prudent to follow her example.
This little incident had one salutary effect. It frightened Sally out of her feeble old wits, confirming, as it did, Dr. Guy's fable of the periodical fits of madness to which the young lady was prone. She related to her mistress, in shrill falsetto, what had occurred.
"And if ever I go near the crazy little hussy again, as long as she's under this roof," concluded Sally, wildly, "I'm a Dutchman!"
"Weren't you frightened?" Mrs. Oleander asked, turning to the nurse.
"Oh, not much!" said the serene Susan. "I'm used to it, you know. I could have dodged if she had heaved the tea-pot. She takes them tantrums once or twice a day."
Mollie spent the evening alone, of course, but in despair no longer. Hope had planted her shining foot on the threshold of her heart, and for the time she could forget she was the most miserable wife of Dr. Oleander, in the face of freedom. And Hugh Ingelow was near, and she loved Hugh. Oh, if she had never refused him—bravest, noblest heart that ever beat! the most generous gentleman the Creator ever made!
Alone Mollie sat—alone, but lonely no longer; for yonder, drifting lazily into the setting tide, the sunset glowing above and around it, floated the snow-white skift. In the amber mist fluttered the banner of blue—the banner of hope—and there, lounging easily, with his face turned to her, was the man she loved, handsome Hugh! her beloved—her darling!
"And, oh! that I were by his side," Mollie exclaimed, in her rhapsody, "never, never to leave it again."
Solitude and imprisonment had done this willful child some good, you see. They had taught her to think—to know herself. She never could be the same crude, madcap Mollie again.