This negative sort of bliss found a temporary interruption in the necessary departure of Kitty to the kitchen, to procure my tea and bring up candles. I felt rather babyishly about it, and nothing but shame kept me from telling Kitty that I had rather do without my tea, and go to bed by firelight, than have her leave me. She did not stay away very long, however, and the nice cup of tea and crisp thin slice of toast, that she brought back with her, quite compensated me for the self-denial I had had to exercise in letting her go. These edibles, Kitty, with all the pomp and circumstance of war, arranged upon the little table beside me, placing the tall wax candles in the centre, and distributing the diminutive pieces of the dainty little tête-à-tête set in the most advantageous manner. The tea tasted very nicely out of the thin china cup, that felt like a play-thing when I lifted it, accustomed as I was to the heavy bluish-white crockery of boarding-school, and though I lacked the vigorous appetite, that had made the primitive meals of that establishment enjoyable, still, the delicate food before me had a decided relish. Kitty very much enjoyed my appreciation of it, and was very sorry she could not go down and bring me another slice of toast, but Mr. Rutledge had said I must not have any more.
"I couldn't eat any more, thank you," I said, rather haughtily, though Mr. Rutledge, and not the kind Kitty, inspired the hauteur. Mrs. Roberts made us a call soon after this, and said it was high time I went to bed, and told Kitty sharply, she knew it was her work, keeping me up so long, and hurried up the preparations for retiring, with energy. Kitty looked saucy, but did not dare to rebel, and only indulged in defiance after the door was closed behind the intruder. She again returned, however, on a final tour of inspection, after I was comfortably arranged in the fair white delicious bed, that seemed to be a special partner of tired nature's sweet restorer, who was good for any amount on its demand. She "poked in every corner" as Kitty expressed it, and found a dozen things to object to in her arrangements, pulled open drawers, and set Kitty poutingly at work to settle them properly, and made my temples throb again with alarm lest she should find something objectionable among my clothes, some rent in my school frock, or an undarned stocking smuggled through the vigilant scrutiny of last week's wash. She sent Kitty for her mattress and blankets, and superintended the arrangement of them, though I could see she did not enter cordially into the plan; but as Mr. Rutledge had ordered that Kitty should sleep beside me, I was sure she would not dare to oppose it.
At last there was no excuse for a longer tarry, and she withdrew; Kitty, with a triumphant gesture, slid the bolt upon her, and we "settled our brains for a long winter's nap." A nap not altogether uninterrupted on my part, by troubled dreams, and sudden starts, and foolish fears; but my waking was always met by Kitty's ready care and soothing sympathy; and toward morning quieted into a long refreshing sleep.
[CHAPTER III.]
"O Time! thou must untangle this, not I,
'Tis too hard a knot for me to untie."
When I awoke, it was to the pleasant reality of morning and sunshine, that had found their way through the light curtains of my pleasant room, and made it pleasanter than ever. Kitty was at my side in an instant, and a brighter fresher face to greet one's waking vision could not be desired. She managed, by prompt and clever measures, to keep off Mrs. Roberts till I had had my breakfast, and risen and been dressed. It was matter of great astonishment to me to find myself so absurdly weak, my strength and spirits at school having passed into a proverb. This sudden illness had reduced me extremely, however, as I found whenever I attempted any exertion, and all Kitty's services were required.
While she was dressing me, she chatted very confidentially, though always with a tone of deference that counterbalanced the liberty she took in talking at all. Our distaste for Mrs. Roberts was potent in putting us on as good terms as young lady and young lady's maid could well be, and there is a sort of freemasonry in youth that sets at defiance the restrictions of rank, and that drew us, the two youngest things in the stately old house, together, naturally and irresistibly.
I call it an old house, because it impressed me at first as such. It was solid and dark, and excepting my room and one or two others on the same floor, had very little that was light and modern-looking about it. It had been built, Kitty said, in the time of Mr. Rutledge's father, and was called the finest house in the country. Loads of money, she informed me, he had spent upon it; workmen had been sent for, hundreds of miles, to do the carving and paint the walls, and no money and no labor was spared to make it a fine place, and indeed there was none like it anywhere around; and now to think of its being shut up like a prison half the year, and sometimes all the year; it was a shame, Kitty thought, upon her honor it was.
I asked her why Mr. Rutledge did not live there?