'And if it was, I'm not a bit ashamed of it,' said Nancy stoutly, 'for I couldn't have stayed another night there, starting and trembling at every sound, and dreaming shocking dreams of being burnt alive in my bed.'
'It's awfully selfish of us to come away and let them be burnt alive in their beds, if you think it's at all likely,' remarked Horatia.
'Then I'll have to be selfish, for I don't consider it's any part of my duty to stop and be burnt with them, which it's their own fault in a way, for they do say that Mr Clay's made himself fairly hated by his ways.'
'I don't hate him,' observed Horatia.
'No, miss, so I saw; but however you put up with him and his common ways, let alone his hasty temper, I can't make out. Well, we've seen the last of them, thank goodness! so I'll say nothing against them,' remarked Mrs Nancy with satisfaction.
'I've promised to go and stay with them again soon,' observed Horatia.
'That's if her ladyship allows it,' replied Nancy, in a tone that implied that the mistress wouldn't allow it.
Horatia only laughed. 'It will be nice to see them all again,' she said. And this time she meant her own family.