"She has no business to be out of her bed--and the doctor ought to tell her so if he's at home," thought Jelly. "Anyway, she must be a great deal better: for I don't think it's delirium."
She waited a short time, but nothing more was seen. Drawing down the blind, Jelly picked up her bag, and passed on to her own chamber--one of the back rooms on this first floor. There she slept undisturbed until morning.
She did not get up until late. Being amenable to no one whilst Mrs. Cumberland was away, the house's mistress in fact, as well as Dinah's, Jelly did not hurry herself. She was not lazy in general, especially on a Saturday, but as she felt tired after her weary afternoon at Ketler's and from having gone so late to rest. Breakfast was ready in the kitchen when she went down; Dinah--a red-faced young woman in a brown-spotted cotton gown--being busy at the fire with the coffee.
"Now then!" began Jelly--her favourite phrase when she was angry. "What have you to say for yourself? Whereabouts on the slab did you put those matches last night?"
Dinah, taken-to, tilted the kettle back. Until that moment she had not thought of her negligence.
"I'm afraid I never put 'em at all," she said.
"No you didn't put 'em," retorted Jelly with sharp emphasis. "But for having matches and a candle in my room, I must have undressed in the dark. And I should like to know why you didn't put 'em; and what you were about not to do it?"
"I'm sure I'm sorry," said Dinah, who was a tractable sort of girl. "I forgot it, I suppose, in the upset about poor Mrs. Rane."
"In the upset about poor Mrs. Rane," scornfully repeated Jelly. "What upset you, pray, about her?--And you've never been out to fasten back the shutters!"
"She's dead," answered Dinah--and the tears came into the girl's eyes. "That's what I've got the shutters half-to for. I thought you'd most likely not have heard it."