"Oh, dear Mrs. Roberts," she exclaimed, as she entered the room, "it struck me on my way down, that perhaps you'd rather wear your old black silk instead of that nice bombazine, as it is getting so late, and the road is so dusty. We haven't had rain, you know, for an age."
Mrs. Roberts drew herself up. Was she or was she not capable of judging what clothes she was to put on? Would it be necessary for her to go down and get the dress she wanted herself?
"By no means," Kitty said; and starting forth again, sat herself down on the third step of the stairs, in direst perplexity. But time pressed; there was no leisure for deliberation. She flew to a closet where some superannuated garments of the housekeeper's hung, selected the most presentable of the series of black bombazine skirts suspended in funereal rows upon the pegs; darted back, and with great composure, laid it on the sofa, while, with officious zeal, she proceeded to divest Mrs. Roberts of her house-costume, and invest her with her walking-dress. By skillfully interposing her person between the dress and the strong light, and putting it on and arranging it entirely with her own hands, she escaped detection. And arrayed in this ancient garment, the housekeeper sallied forth on her way to the Parsonage.
Too anxious to be triumphant this time, Kitty stole out after her, to see the effect of the sunlight upon the foxy, faded black; but Mrs. Roberts was too much engrossed with cankering cares of a sterner kind, to think of her bombazine.
At the gate, however, to her great content, she encountered Mr. Shenstone on his way from Norbury, and stopping him, held a long and anxious consultation with him (in which, said Kitty, par parenthèse, "I overheard her say some pretty things about you; but no matter)." She then parted from the clergyman, and returned slowly toward the house, Kitty following anxiously behind the hedge. The setting sun threw the most dazzling beams down the avenue. Kitty's heart beat, as she saw the housekeeper cast her eyes meditatively upon her dress; then, as the sunlight struck full upon it, she stooped a little down, and paused, and looked again, and again adjusted her glasses. She began, in truth, to "smell a rat," for passing her hand rapidly over the front breadth, she shook her head doubtingly, then lifted the suspicious garment to the sunlight, then holding it at arms' length, uttered an exclamation of surprise, turned it up, and examining the hem all around, dropped it; turned the pocket inside out—felt of the band around the waist—recognized its unfamiliarity—and with a low muttering of suppressed wrath, gathered herself up, and hastened toward the house.
"It's all up!" groaned poor Kitty, as, by the back way, she darted into the kitchen, and awaited with trembling the pull of Mrs. Roberts' bell.
"Kitty Carter," said Mrs. Roberts, in an awful voice, as she entered the room, "you have been practising upon me in an abominable manner. I have borne your saucy ways for a long time, but the end has now come. You can't deceive me; I'm too quick for you, and you shall be exposed. It's my intention to make Mr. Rutledge acquainted with your deceitful practices; and that, you are aware, is just the same as giving you warning; for Mr. Rutledge has never been known to endure anything of the kind in his house."
Kitty quailed under this attack; but, rallying in a moment, asked Mrs. Roberts if she'd please tell her what was the matter? Her answer was a peremptory order to bring up the dress she had given her in the morning. For once in her life, Kitty had nothing to say; while Mrs. Roberts exclaimed:
"It's my belief, Kitty Carter, that dress is lying where I put it this morning, and that you haven't touched it."
"I wish from my soul I hadn't," thought the unlucky girl.