“Bless me,” cried Alice, as she entered the room, “can that be the bagpipes for breakfast, and it has only just gone ten! Well, I thought my Lady Arandale would have taken a sleep this morning, after being up a matter of half the night.”
“Were we so much later than usual then?” asked Frances.
“Much as common, my Lady,” replied Alice; “but when the men went in to take the supper things away, my Lady and my Lord, both, were so busy with Mr. Edmund, Captain Montgomery, I should say, that they were sent away again, and not rung for, for two hours. I wish all may be true that was said in the hall,” she recommenced, after having assisted her young ladies to dress for some time in silence; “for Mr. Edmund is one that every body loves; and I, for one, should rejoice in his good luck—and think it nothing so strange, neither; though the old butler put himself in such a passion, and said that Lady Susan was a wife for the first duke in the land—and—”
“I have told you before, Alice,” said Julia, making an effort to conceal her real feelings under the mask of pettishness, “that you are not to repeat the conversations of the hall-table in our room.”
“I beg pardon, my Lady, but I only meant to say as how my Lady Arandale came to be late. But I am sure I repeated nothing: neither what my Lady Susan’s maid said, nor what my Lady Arandale’s maid said, nor what my Lord’s man said, about the time they were at Lodore, nor all I said myself about the power of money that Mr. Edmund had won from the French, and about what a nice, handsome young gentleman he was;—but for just a kind wish for one that every one loves, I didn’t think it would have given offence.”
“You can never give offence by wishing well to any one, Alice,” said Frances, “but it was not necessary to repeat what other servants said: that was all. I suppose,” she added, in an under tone to her sister, as they went down stairs together, “he was asking papa and mamma’s consent, last night. And after his fine resolutions, too!” she added, laughing, “never to think of marriage till he had discovered all about his birth, name, and so forth.”
CHAPTER XI.
“She will wait in vain thy return.”