Miss Blake set her lips tight, and looked up at the gallery. There was a little stir in that part of the court, a shuffling of feet, and suppressed whispering. In vain the crier shouted, "Silence! silence, there!" The bustle continued for about a minute, and then all became quiet again. A policeman stated "a female had fainted," and our curiosity being satisfied, we all with one accord turned towards our learned friend, who, one hand under his gown, holding it back, and the other raised to emphasise his question, had stood in this picturesque attitude during the time occupied in carrying the female out, as if done in stone.
"Miss Blake, will you kindly answer my question?" he said, when order once again reigned in court.
"You're worse than a heathen," remarked the lady, irrelevantly.
"I am sorry you do not like me," he replied, "for I admire you very much; but my imperfections are beside the matter in point. What I want you to tell us is, did Miss Elmsdale open that door?"
"She did—the creature, she did," was the answer; "her heart was always tender to dumb brutes."
"I have no doubt the young lady's heart was everything it ought to be," was the reply; "and for that reason, though she had an intense repugnance to enter the room, she opened the door to let the dog out."
"She said so: I was not there," answered Miss Blake.
Whereupon ensued a brisk skirmish between counsel as to whether Miss Blake could give evidence about a matter of mere hearsay. And after they had fought for ten minutes over the legal bone, our adversary said he would put the question differently, which he did, thus:
"You were sitting in the dining-room, when you were startled by hearing a piercing shriek."
"I heard a screech—you can call it what you like," said Miss Blake, feeling an utter contempt for English phraseology.