"'And to choose rooms there to come to at first,' said Mary. 'Oh yes, our getting away by that train is impossible. And then the Christmas trains are like Sunday. Even by travelling all night we cannot get home, I fear. I must telegraph to mother as soon as we get back to East Hornham.'
"The young woman had not returned. We were wondering what had become of her when she made her appearance laden with everything she could think of for our comfort. The bed, she assured us, could not be damp, as it had been 'to the fire' all the previous day, and she insisted on putting on a pair of her own sheets, coarse but beautifully white, and fetching from another room additional blankets, which in their turn had to be subjected to 'airing,' or 'firing' rather. To the best of her ability she provided us with toilet requisites, apologising, poor thing, for the absence of what we 'of course, must be used to,'—as she expressed it, in the shape of fine towels, perfumed soap, and so on. And she ended by cooking us a rasher of bacon and poached eggs for supper, all the materials for which refection she had brought from her own cottage. She was so kind that I shrank from suggesting to Mary the objection to the proposed arrangement, which was all this time looming darkly before me. But when our friend was about to take her leave for the night I could keep it back no longer.
"'Mary,' I whispered, surprised and somewhat annoyed at my sister's calmness, 'are you going to let her go away? You and I can't stay here all night alone.'
"'Do you mean that you are frightened, Laura dear?' she said kindly, in the same tone. 'I don't see that there is anything to be frightened of; and if there were, what good would another girl—for this young woman is very little older than I—do us?'
"'She knows the house, any way, and it wouldn't seem so bad,' I replied, adding aloud, 'Oh, Mrs. Atkins'—for I had heard the driver mention her name—'can't you stay in the house with us? We shall feel so dreadfully strange.'
"'I would have done so most gladly, Miss,' the young woman began, but Mary interrupted her.
"'I know you can't,' she said; 'your husband is ill. Laura, it would be very wrong of us to propose such a thing.'
"'That's just how it is,' said Mrs. Atkins. 'My husband has such bad nights he can't be left, and there's no one I could get to sit with him. Besides, it's such a dreadful night to seek for any one.'
"'Then the driver,' I said; 'couldn't he stay somewhere downstairs? He might have a fire in one of the rooms.'
"Mrs. Atkins wished it had been thought of before. 'Giles,'—which it appeared was the man's name—would have done it in a minute, she was sure, but it was too late. He had already set off to seek a night's lodging and some supper, no doubt, at a little inn half a mile down the road.